Is a tired doctor putting you at risk?

Florida residents like you expect careful attendance when you seek medical attention. This is particularly true for hospitals or other locations you go to for medical emergencies. Unfortunately, good service is not always the experience.

Mistakes in the medical field often come with heavy consequences. This makes some of the reasons for said medical mistakes all the more shocking.

Prevalence of fatigue in medical staff

The National Institutes of Health looks into some of the major causes for medical errors. They interviewed 130 postgraduate students. They asked about errors they experienced and the reasons for them. Of the 130 residents who took the survey, 128 expressed their experience with some form of error.

Notably, the biggest single reason for errors was fatigue. In specific, residents cited fatigue due to long working hours. 85 of the 128 people who reported experiencing errors cited fatigue. Inadequate experience was the second-highest rated reason. 66 people claimed this factored into their errors.

The impact of fatigue

When someone suffers fatigue or experiences sleep deprivation, many mistakes happen. This is because fatigue impacts your ability to make decisions, retain information and process things in a logical way. Reflexes also slow, and the brain struggles to focus.

These are catastrophic states for a medical personnel member to experience while on duty. They can lead to many issues, including misdiagnosing a patient or missing crucial information for a proper diagnosis. Mix-ups of patient information and medication also occur at a higher rate when staff suffers from fatigue. This can lead to you missing important dosages or taking medication that is not yours. The damage that can come from fatigued staff could be vast.