Neil H. Winawer, MD, SFHM reviewing Huffmyer JL et al. Anesthesiology 2016 Jun.

After working six consecutive night shifts, residents had impaired driving skills compared with when they worked day shifts.

Despite residency work-hour regulations mandated recently in the U.S., residency training still requires extended work hours and overnight shifts. But do these work conditions adversely affect residents' driving performance?

Researchers in Virginia enrolled 29 anesthesiology residents (postgraduate year, 2–4), who were on their night-float rotation. Driving performance (in a high-fidelity simulator) was measured at 8:00 a.m., after six consecutive night shifts; the same residents completed the driving simulation again at 8:00 a.m. at least 10 days after they had transitioned to normal day shifts with no prior overnight call. Reported 24-hour sleep times were shorter while working nights (averages, 6.6 vs. 7.2 hours). Residents were much more likely to report ingesting caffeine before day-shift driving simulations. After the night-shift sequence, compared with the day-shift sequence, all measured driving variables (speed, lane position, throttle, and steering) showed significantly impaired control, and significantly more major and minor lapses in attention were noted.

CITATION(S):

Huffmyer JL et al. Driving performance of residents after six consecutive overnight work shifts. Anesthesiology 2016 Jun; 124:1396.

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