Clinical Trial: The Intermittent Pneumoperitoneum Scheme of Work Breaks in Complex Laparoscopic Surgery

Study Status: Completed
Recruit Status: Completed
Study Type: Interventional




Official Title: Prospective Study on the Effects of the Intermittent Pneumoperitoneum (IPP) Work Break Scheme on Surgeons and Patients.

Brief Summary:

Many people spanning from air traffic controllers to simple production line workers share regular compulsive breaks to revert fatigue whilst they work. This is uncommon for medical operators - a macho image is still as prevalent in real life as it is in countless TV series.

We report on the first clinical trial on regular intraoperative breaks. For one time we turned our scientific curiosity to ourselves. This included the intraoperative collection of body fluids and required transparency which was not easy to obtain. It was rewarded with striking results: Regular intraoperative breaks lowered significantly the operators stress hormone levels, improved error-performance testing results and musculoskeletal fatigue scores. Subjectively the breaks enhanced the practitioners satisfaction.

Surprisingly the operator's breaks were not at the cost of the patient: because the did not prolong the overall operation time at all and - in our setting- they significantly increased of cardiac output and urine production.