Experts from UCLA School of Medicine advise caution: older patients may face elevated risks if surgery falls on their surgeon's birthday. A landmark BMJ study reports a 23% increase in 30-day mortality for seniors, though further validation is essential.
Planning surgery? A study in the British Medical Journal suggests checking your surgeon's birthday. Researchers at UCLA analyzed data from 981,000 operations across 17 procedures performed by 48,000 surgeons between 2011 and 2014. Of these, 2,064 (0.2%) occurred on the surgeon's birthday.
Adjusting for patient and surgeon factors, the 30-day mortality rate for patients over 65 was 6.9% on birthdays versus 5.6% on other days—a 23% higher risk.
“Our study is the first to link surgeons' birthdays to patient mortality, but more research is needed before concluding birthdays significantly impact performance,” said lead author Yusuke Tsugawa, MD, MPH. Note: findings apply only to patients over 65; younger patients were not studied.
The team hypothesizes birthdays may cause distraction and reduced focus. However, Tsugawa stresses it's not advisable to reschedule solely for this reason yet. Future confirmations could lead to policies restricting surgeries on birthdays.
