• Vote count : Doctors and sleep Vote count : Doctors and sleep By the Ironton (Ohio) Tribune – November 27, 2004 OK. Here we are nearly three weeks after the U.S. presidential race was over and we’re still fighting
• Vote count : Doctors and sleep
Vote count : Doctors and sleep
By the Ironton (Ohio) Tribune – November 27, 2004
OK. Here we are nearly three weeks after the U.S. presidential race was over and we’re still fighting battles in Ohio – mostly caused by outsiders who feel it’s their mission to “fix” all of our problems. In the weeks since Ohio captured the national attention as being the ultimate “swing” state in the 2004 election, the blows to our state’s credibility just keep coming.
Sen. John Kerry conceded President Bush’s victory. He gave up the fight when he realized the numbers were not likely to fall his way. His concession didn’t come with a disclaimer: I concede unless someone in a week or two can prove to me that in fact I did not win. Not even Kerry is that much of a flip-flopper.
If the election count was good enough to satisfy Kerry, then it’s good enough for us. All of you outside instigators please go home and come back to Ohio when you’re more interested in counting historical sites or football scores instead of alleged voting errors that seem insignificant to us.
On the Net: www.irontontribune.com /articles/2004/11/28/opinion/opinion01. txt
From the Chicago Tribune – November 26, 2004
Of all the questions that patients ask their doctors, there’s one that often is overlooked: How much sleep have you had? That’s a question every patient, particularly those awaiting surgery or other invasive procedure, should be asking after the dramatic results of two new studies in the New England Journal of Medicine. The studies examined the performance of sleep-deprived interns—first-year doctors-in-training who provide much direct medical care in teaching hospitals. They found that the longer the interns went without sleep, the more errors they made. … Medical mistakes kill. A 1999 Institute of Medicine report suggested medical errors led to the deaths of an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 hospitalized U.S. patients every year.
That study didn’t delve into the issue of sleep deprivation and medical errors.
These new studies help fill in some blanks, even though they focused only on the newest doctors. It would be valuable to study the effects of sleep deprivation on doctors who are well past their residency years, or even past their first year of residency.
There are many reasons for medical mistakes; not getting enough sleep shouldn’t be one of them.
