Connection Found Between Needle Stick Injuries and Long Shifts

Nearly 84 percent of medical interns reported that they are continuing to work hours that exceeded the limits of a 2003 national standard implemented by the medical profession, a new study finds. A related study concludes that interns are much more likely to injure themselves mistakenly with a needle or another sharp instrument when working in a hospital more than 20 consecutive hours, or at night.

The studies appear in the September 6, 2006, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and were funded by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Brigham and Women's Hospital. These findings build on previous research and the growing awareness that sleep-deprived first-year doctors in training (interns) working traditional 24-hour shifts make many more serious medical errors and crash their cars more often than those whose work is limited to 16 consecutive hours.

"These studies raise troubling questions about compliance with standards that were developed to reduce medical errors due to work-hour-related fatigue," said AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D. "Residency programs that don't comply with these standards could be jeopardizing the safety of both their patients and their interns," she added.

"Current professional regulations allow doctors-in-training to work 24-30 hours in a row, a limit far beyond established safe limits for pilots and truckers, and far beyond the legally enforced 13-hour limit for physicians in Europe," said Dr. Landrigan. "Yet even this permissive limit is routinely exceeded. To address the epidemic of medical errors in this country, we must start by establishing evidence-based, safe work-hour limits for young physicians, and we must then enforce them."