It may be common sense to think that life events do affect how people perform their job. In most of our professions, distractions come with the territory. Surgeons are no different from the rest of us, the difference is that surgeons’ life events affect patient mortality.

Now, some of these distractions may lead to an error. If a plaintiff is able to pin down the error and injury is due to some sort of distraction, the parties may be able to quickly reach a settlement. The most basic example might be that a surgeon is overworked: there are only so many procedures one can safely do in a day. Some other examples include a surgeon rushing to wrap up a surgery in order to catch a flight.

Or, say, it is the surgeon’s birthday. Well, it turns out that there is an increased mortality rate for patients who had emergency surgeries performed on the surgeon’s birthday.

We would all like to think that when we or a loved one is going under the knife for surgery, everything is going to be just fine. We tell that to ourselves, we tell our loved ones, we feel reassured by a surgeon’s confidence and experience with the procedure. It turns out that about 1/4 of procedures experience complications, and of those complications, about 1/2 may be considered avoidable. So, if we break it out, one in eight surgeries has an avoidable complication. These complications range from minor and insignificant to completely devastating.

What can hospitals do to address these avoidable complications? We have already seen changes in how surgeries are scheduled, to minimize overlap. Armed with the knowledge of what is negatively affecting patient mortality, we expect that physicians and facilities should continue to collaborate to improve patient outcomes.

So, should you ask your surgeon what her birthday is? Well, if you have the chance, it wouldn’t hurt, would it? It is probably wise to ask what other surgeries she is scheduled for that day, and how much overlap does she have between procedures. Or if she is headed on vacation soon? Because we will be asking those questions at her deposition if something does go wrong.