Citation

Livingston DH, Walling PA. Ann. Surg. Open 2022; 3(1): e123.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Wolters Kluwer)

DOI

10.1097/AS9.0000000000000123

PMID

37600083

PMCID

PMC10431244

Abstract

It was with great interest that we read the study "A National Survey of Motor Vehicle Crashes (MVC) Among General Surgical Residents."1 In their survey, the authors identified that increases in duty hour violations were associated with an increased in hazardous driving events. The safety and wellbeing of surgical (and all) residents are of paramount importance, and this study clearly identifies a serious issue that has been long known but not widely spoken about. The authors state that to their knowledge this is the first evaluation of the driving habits of surgical residents. While they may be correct that those data have not been published, similar finding were presented by the authors at the Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) in 1989 (Driving and Residency: An Accident Waiting to Happen, presented at the paper session).

The genesis of that study was several serious MVCs that occurred in 1987 to 1988 to residents in our institution. To ascertain the extent of the issue and identify if it was specialty specific, paper surveys were sent to New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) residents in SURGery, PSYCHiatry, ORTHOpedics, Internal MEDicine, and PEDiatrics (n = 302) as well as all members of the ACS candidate groups from Massachusetts, Illinois, and California (n = 1468). The response rate from our residents varied from 43% (PED) to 63% (SURG) with a mean of 53%. The response rate from the candidate groups was 46% and did not vary by significantly by state. ...

Language: en