In interesting new study was released by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in the Archives of Surgery are more likely to make mistakes after an evening or night of drinking.
To measure the degree of that impairment, the researchers invited eight surgeons and 16 students out for a night on the town. Half the students and all of the experts were encouraged to down as much booze as they wanted until they felt drunk. The rest of the students weren’t allowed to touch any alcohol, but still went out for dinner. The next day, the merrymakers, hung-over or not, went to the lab to perform a type of camera-guided surgery that uses a few small incisions instead of one big one — so-called laparoscopy. The surgery was done on a virtual reality system, not a real person. That turned out to be fortunate, because both the surgeons and those students who had been drunk did worse than when they were tested before the party. At 9 AM, hung-over students made about 19 errors on average, while those who hadn’t been drinking made only eight. This difference hadn’t been seen before the night out, and faded over the day.
This is an interesting revelation as typically the medical profession does not regulate or restrict surgeons from drinking the day or night before surgery. It will be interesting to see if the medical profession takes a stricter approach to drinking the day or night before performing surgery.
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