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Elderly patients 23% more likely to die if surgery is on the surgeon’s birthday

psychnewsdaily.com

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Re: Elderly patients 23% more likely to die if surgery is on the surgeon’s birthday

#161

Post by andrewla »

throwawaylolx wrote: post #121
kkoncevicius wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment you replied to has nothing to do with "correlation does not equal causation". The point was that fishing for results, by trying everything, is guaranteed to find something. So if, in a study like this, they looked at differences in morality rate between: 1) men and women, 2) younger and older people, 3) younger and older surgeons, 4) surgeries in summer vs winter 4) surgeries in morning vs evening 5) etc…

Why are you and others assuming this was the case and it wasn't the original hypothesis they had in mind? They explain the reasoning for selecting this hypothesis to test: >Operations performed on birthdays of surgeons might provide a unique opportunity to assess the relationship between personal distractions and patient outcomes, under the hypothesis that surgeons may be more likely to become distracted or feel rush…

Did they pre-register before conducting the study? If not, then how can you possibly assume the opposite? They can always write the justification for choosing the hypothesis after the fact.

EDIT: This need not be done maliciously, that could very well be the actual reason why they decided to look at the birthday. What is concealed is how many other possibilities, equally well justified, were considered.

Re: Elderly patients 23% more likely to die if surgery is on the surgeon’s birthday

#164

Post by pps »

mrfusion wrote: post #162

Couldn’t this be that surgeons don’t want to schedule surgeries on their birthdays so they end up only scheduling the sickest and most urgent? (Sorry if that’s already been suggested)

> The study focused on emergency surgery, so as to minimize the potential selection bias. For example, surgeons might otherwise choose patients based on their illness severity, or patients might choose their surgeon.

Re: Elderly patients 23% more likely to die if surgery is on the surgeon’s birthday

#165

Post by ericpauley »

Ensorceled wrote: post #79

Anecdotally, my father-in-law was chief of staff for a small city hospital and they had a rule about not scheduling afternoon surgeries on important days like anniversaries, birthdays, etc. Basically, if the surgery started going long, you didn't want the surgeon worrying about missing their spouses birthday, birthday with their kids or an anniversary. It actually wasn't that many surgeries delayed, as the surgeon ju…

Simpson's paradox: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

Re: Elderly patients 23% more likely to die if surgery is on the surgeon’s birthday

#166

Post by kube-system »

someburner wrote: post #143
mhh__ wrote: post #52

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2019/01/surgical-safety-checklist... Getting surgeons to adopt the kind of "It's obvious but point and speak or you're fired"-style checklists a la operating an aircraft has reduced complications (from the minor to deaths) by several percent in the NHS. It's perhaps worrying given how low-hanging some of these fruit are - i.e. "Do we have the right patient?".

I just got surgery in California and noticed I was asked to state my name and birthday anytime I moved rooms or saw a new person. Seems like this is now part of protocol in a lot of places.

That is standard procedure in the US for every trained medical professional, all the way down to the MA who measures your height and weight at a routine physical.

Re: Elderly patients 23% more likely to die if surgery is on the surgeon’s birthday

#167

Post by ThinkingGuy »

minikites wrote: post #149
someburner wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got surgery in California and noticed I was asked to state my name and birthday anytime I moved rooms or saw a new person. Seems like this is now part of protocol in a lot of places.

I got in a medium-severity bicycle accident in 2010 and while I was being whisked around the hospital for different tests and procedures I had to do that too.

It's even done at Red Cross donation centers when I donate blood.

Re: Elderly patients 23% more likely to die if surgery is on the surgeon’s birthday

#168

Post by [deleted] »

pps wrote: post #164
mrfusion wrote: post #162

Couldn’t this be that surgeons don’t want to schedule surgeries on their birthdays so they end up only scheduling the sickest and most urgent? (Sorry if that’s already been suggested)

> The study focused on emergency surgery, so as to minimize the potential selection bias. For example, surgeons might otherwise choose patients based on their illness severity, or patients might choose their surgeon.

[deleted]

Re: Elderly patients 23% more likely to die if surgery is on the surgeon’s birthday

#169

Post by La1n »

ericpauley wrote: post #165
Ensorceled wrote: post #79

Anecdotally, my father-in-law was chief of staff for a small city hospital and they had a rule about not scheduling afternoon surgeries on important days like anniversaries, birthdays, etc. Basically, if the surgery started going long, you didn't want the surgeon worrying about missing their spouses birthday, birthday with their kids or an anniversary. It actually wasn't that many surgeries delayed, as the surgeon ju…

Simpson's paradox: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

I think it'd be more accurate to describe this as suvival bias, where the worse cases "survive" (i.e. they get to be done on that day).
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