What Time You Go In For Surgery May Affect How You Come Through It

But here’s something you might not have thought about: at what time of day is your surgery scheduled?

It’s a question one study suggests you should be asking.

Duke University in the U.S. looked at 9,000 operations performed at its famed medical centre and came to a startling conclusion. Those who had a procedure at 3pm were more likely to suffer postoperative nausea and vomiting, wound infections or pain than people who had the same operations performed at 8 in the morning.

How do they explain it?

The researchers believe there are a number of reasons for the time shift, including doctor fatigue as the day wears on, changing shifts at the hospital and even a patient’s own stress level from waiting to go under the knife.

And there were more likely to be mistakes made later in the day, including giving patients the wrong dose of anesthesia medication. It also takes longer to get lab tests back and busy physicians often find themselves running late, adding to their own stress levels.

“We believe that identifying the specific periods when problems are most likely to occur is an important step in the overall process of making surgery safer and ensuring that patients have a good experience,” explains lead researcher Dr. Melanie Wright.

Follow-up studies are being planned to see where the errors are most commonly made, which factors are really at play – and how the afternoon assessments can be changed.