Similar to resident work-hours, this article suggests that doctors who take more call (i.e. in rural areas) may be more prone to fatigue-related clinical errors:
“Looking back, almost all complaints about my communication and treatment have arisen from times when I’ve been exhausted due to long on-call hours,” one doctor said.
Dr Janes said heavy hospital on-call rosters had been shown to affect performance to a level similar to mild alcohol intoxication.
“Which suggests that sleep-deprived rural providers doing frequent on-call may be clinically unsafe,” Dr Janes said.
