“The take-home message here is that the repercussions of fatigue on residents are considerable. This is a national problem, and we shouldn't consider it solved by an 80-hour cap on hours.”
“We have to continue to educate doctors-in-training, and we should help them develop sleep risk-management strategies. This is particularly important since our study shows that many sleep-starved residents don't recognize that they're impaired.”
“[How much to prescribe is an open question.] The absurdity of this is that a lot of times we're put in a position of saying, 'Well, I guess we'll just give them half the adult dose,' ... We're sort of flying by the seat of our pants here.”
“The last thing we want to suggest is that it's O.K. to throw a medication at something without understanding the problem, ... Insomnia is a symptom, not a disorder. It's like pain. You're not going to give a patient pain medication without figuring out what's causing the pain.”
