From a study, led by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S.A, it appears that major medical errors, which are self-reported by American surgeons, are strongly related to both burnout and depression. Some surgeons are likely to commit medical errors if they are suffering from burnout and depressions, according to the study published this week in the online version of the Annals of Surgery.

Results showed that during the previous 3 months nearly 9% of the 7,905 surgeons we’re involved in an error while in surgery and that the components of surgeon burnout like emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and perception personal accomplishments, were related to these errors. More than 70% of the surgeons admitted that the errors were the result of  burnout and emotional exhaustion rather than because of poorly designed healthcare systems and processes.

From this results we might conclude that the personal mental health of a surgeon may have an effect on the quality of care, therefore the aim is to encourage more research on finding ways to reduce distress among surgeons in order to provide better support when errors occur. Or even better, encourage more research to prevent errors from happening.
 

Source: Science Codex