RE: 24hour shifts

["Paul M. Wright, Jr." <pmwright@home.com>]

>> I have had 24 hour shifts where the day was quiet and starting at 5pm flew until 5am, yes I was tired, did have  a  2  hour nap that day and I don't feel that my function level was any different than if I had come in for a night shift. 

 

The problem with that approach is that self-assessment is notoriously inaccurate.   Fatigue is one of those physiologic conditions where the ability to detect impairment is impaired right along with the psychomotor responses.  This is an area where there is no paucity of research-based data, but we tend to discount it or rationalize the findings as irrelevant because the data was not collected in our little neck of the woods (even when it comes from the closely related disciplines of aviation, medicine and military).

 

At some point, we should be re-directing the discussion away from "is my performance on a 24 hour shift 'good enough'?" to "is the 24 hour staffing pattern consistent with giving my patients the best care I can give?".

 

 

 

regards!

 

paul

 

Paul M. Wright, Jr.

Mesa, AZ