Are You Getting Ready for Surgery? Here's Why the Day of the Week May Matter

How does it matter when your surgery is scheduled? Well, apparently it does, as a new study says the day of the week on which you have your operation could impact its outcome.

According to the research, published in JAMA Open Network, in comparison to those who received surgical care early in the week, people who had their surgery before the start of the weekend had an increased risk of adverse outcomes like post-surgery complications or hospital readmission even days after. Also, many people face the risk of death.

“We’ve seen in the literature that there have been talks previously of something called ‘the weekend effect,’ which is if you get surgery close to the weekend, you are more likely to have poorer outcomes,” Dr. Vatsala Mundra, a study co-author and a urology clinical research fellow at Houston Methodist Hospital, told Health.com.

According to Dr. Mundra, the weekend effect is part of short-term data, and the scientists are working to find out if it happens even over a longer period of time. After examining data from more than 400,000 patients over more than a decade, researchers said there was a significantly higher risk of poor post-surgery outcomes in those who had them on Fridays as compared to the ones scheduled on Mondays.

This study is instrumental in finding how a hospital staff may be affecting the patient’s health, while also encouraging the medical community to improve and standardize surgical care.

Researchers, who tracked patients’ health for a year after they had their surgery between January 2007 and December 2019, more than half of the surgeries were performed on Mondays, while 46.5 per cent were completed on Fridays.

Along with small operations, a wide range of specialties here included cardiovascular surgery, general surgery, neurosurgery, gynecology, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, plastic surgery, thoracic surgery, urology, and vascular surgery.

The research found that those with Friday surgery had a 5 per cent increased risk of poor health outcomes, which included complications and even death. While experts have been vocal about which day may be good or bad for you, the reasons behind it are not explained definitively. Experts say there can be many reasons behind it, which include the time of day, in addition to the characteristics of the doctor doing the surgery, how it was conducted, and the hospital's characteristics or resources.

Doctors say in many cases the characteristics of patients can play a major role in the surgery outcome, along with the weekend effect explained by issues with hospital staffing. On weekends mostly, the staff might be a little less than on other days as not many nurses and doctors are on shifts.

Researchers also found that younger and less experienced surgeons were more likely to have pre-weekend Friday shifts – with limited access to specialists, tests, and scans.

According to researchers, even though Fridays do raise alarm bells when it comes to getting ready for your big day, you must still consult with your doctors as it mostly depends on your situation and health. If your surgeon only offers appointments on weekends, or if the surgery has to be conducted immediately, then this should not be a problem.

While past studies do not point to a single day as the best to go in for surgery, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are often mentioned as days “with greater surgical volumes and surgeon experience.

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