A study investigated whether surgeons’ sleep timing regularity influences patient outcomes. The study included 7,117 operations performed by 38 attending surgeons across 14 surgical departments and seven specialties at four university hospitals in France. Researchers continuously monitored surgeons’ sleep using actigraphy and assessed sleep timing regularity using midsleep time, defined as the midpoint between bedtime and wake time.
Social jet lag (SJL) was measured as the difference in midsleep timing between workdays and free days. Among the procedures analyzed, 19.8% resulted in a major adverse event within 30 days of surgery, including inpatient death, prolonged intensive care unit stay, reoperation, or severe postoperative complications. Patients operated on by surgeons with SJL of two hours or more in the month preceding surgery experienced a significantly higher risk of major…
