Heart patients’ survival rate rises when top doctors are off

HEART attack patients are more likely to survive when senior cardiologists are not in the hospital, a study found.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School discovered that when leading heart specialists are away at academic conferences, the survival rate at their hospitals actually improves.

They believe that specialists who attend the meetings are more prone to using intensive interventions such as stents for their patients, which may do more harm than good, rather than taking a more holistic approach.

“Many medical interventions deliver no mortality benefit, and the fact that mortality actually falls for heart attack patients during these conference dates raises important questions about how care might differ during these periods,” said Dr Anupam Jena, the lead author.

Dr Jena and his team looked at 3,153 heart attack patients who were admitted to hospitals in the US. They then compared them with 31,156 heart attack patients admitted to hospital when senior cardiologists were present.

They found doctors who attended conferences usually performed more stents. Their findings suggest that while the doctors who stayed were equally skilled at stenting as doctors who attended the meetings, those who stayed may have been better at overall care.

“This is an unfortunate paradox given that professional conferences are designed to actually makes us better physicians and improve the care we deliver,” added Dr Jena. The research was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.