Friday Fun: Naptime for Internal Medicine Residents

A recent study in Academic Medicine?ánot only made available awesome futuristic nap pods (photo, left) to fatigued house staff, but also found that a short mid-day nap can improve?ácognitive functioning and alertness among first-year IM residents.

“In this study, we measured the effect of a brief, mid-day nap during normal duty hours on cognitive functioning and alertness among first-year IM residents. We found that, compared with the resting-but-awake residents, the residents who actually napped experienced fewer attention failures during their work later in the day as determined by a monitor of SEMs. Further, we found that, compared with controls who rested but stayed awake for 20 minutes, residents who had the opportunity to nap for a maximum of 20 minutes demonstrated a faster reaction time and made fewer errors of omission and commission as determined by a validated test of cognitive functioning. These findings suggest that a short, mid-day nap may improve first year residentsÔÇÖ performance during their clinical duties.”

Any parent can tell you that a regularly scheduled nap time makes for happier humans. Now to just equip the staff lounge with some of these pods, throw in some cookies and juice for a post-slumber snack, and medical errors will be a thing of the past, right?

Citation and link to full text:?á
The Effects of a Mid-Day Nap on the Neurocognitive Performance of First-Year Medical Residents: A Controlled Interventional Pilot Study.
Amin MM, Graber M, Ahmad K, Manta D, Hossain S, Belisova Z, Cheney W, Gold MS, Gold AR.
Academic Medicine: 21 August 2012
View in PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22914520