The mortality rate in a patient operated by a surgeon on his birthday is 6.9% in the 30 days following the intervention, against 5.6% in normal times. But the authors of this study point out that no causal link can be established.
-1608557669.jpg "If you are elderly and your surgeon is celebrating his birthday, postpone the operation!")
- For older people, the risk of death one month after surgery increases slightly if the operation was performed on the surgeon’s birthday.
- According to the researchers, this was likely due to greater distraction that day.
- However, no causal link can be established between the birthday of the practitioner who operates and the mortality risks of the elderly, because the sample, which includes neither young people nor non-urgent operations, is not sufficiently representative.
Perhaps one’s mind is elsewhere on his birthday, which explains some errors. If in normal times, it is not very serious, it can become so for a surgeon. A study published on December 10, 2020 in the British Medical Journal reports a much higher risk of dying in the weeks that follow in older people who have had surgery by a surgeon on their birthday.
A slightly more distracted mind
To quantify this increased risk, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles (United States) analyzed data from nearly 981,000 surgical operations between 2011 and 2014. These operations, in 17 different types of surgery, concerned Health Insurance beneficiaries, who were operated on by approximately 48,000 surgeons.
Looking at the results, the researchers found that within 30 days of surgery, the mortality rate was 6.9% in patients whose surgery was performed on their surgeon’s birthday and 5. 6% in the other patients, a difference of about 23%. Of these 981,000 operations, 0.2% took place for the surgeons’ birthday, or 1,962 of them.
According to the researchers, this is because surgeons may be more distracted on their birthday than on other days, although more research is needed to determine this for sure.
Not a good enough reason to postpone surgery
“Our study was the first to show the link between a surgeon’s birthday and patient mortality, but further research is needed before concluding that birthdays do indeed have a significant effect on surgeon performance.said Yusuke Tsugawa, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. However, at this stage, given that the evidence is still limited, I do not believe that patients should avoid surgery on the birthday of the surgeon..”
If Yusuke Tsugawa expresses reservations on these conclusions, it is in particular because of the limits of the study. On the one hand, researchers have not been able to identify the mechanisms that lead to a higher mortality rate in patients who undergo surgery on their surgeon’s birthday. In fact, no causal link can be fully established. In addition, the study focused on elderly patients, which limits its scope. For Yusuke Tsugawa, it would be necessary to see if similar results apply in young patients or people who have undergone an elective operation to have a complete vision of the situation.
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