14.62 Does sleep deprivation affect your work?
Sleep deprivation experienced by physicians during residency training and the possible negative consequences are of concern to many in the health care community. One study of 33 resident anesthesiologists compared their changes from baseline in reaction times on four tasks.15 Under baseline conditions, the physicians reported getting an average of 7.04 hours of sleep. While on duty, however, the average was 1.66 hours. For each of the tasks, the researchers reported a statistically significant increase in the reaction time when the residents were working in a state of sleep deprivation.