A surgeon's stress at the beginning of a procedure might affect clinical outcomes, according to research published Jan. 15 in JAMA.
The researchers, who work at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and healthcare institutions in France, investigated a potential link between surgeons' physiological stress and postoperative complications.
To measure stress during operations, 38 surgeons wore chest monitors that calculated sympathovagal balance — the ratio of low-frequency to high-frequency heart rate. Between Nov. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2021, these surgeons performed 793 surgical procedures across four university hospitals in Lyon, France.
The data from the first five minutes of each procedure revealed an association between increased stress and improved patient outcomes 30 days post-surgery.