Sleep Across the Land

A recent study titled “Sleep in the City,” ranking America’s 50 most populated metropolitan areas, talks about getting a good night’s sleep. Boston ranked as one of the top metro areas for good sleep while New York ranked as one of the 10 cities with the most sleep problems. After this year’s American League Championship Series, which witnessed the Yankees blowing a 3-0 series lead and eventually losing to the Red Sox in seven games, it will be quite a long time before New York works its way out of the bottom 10. Could there be a correlation here?

In other national news, Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago, was recently named as a defendant in a case involving a medical resident at the hospital who severely injured a woman in a car crash. The doctor involved in the crash had been on duty at the hospital for 34 hours. The accident occurred when the doctor fell asleep at the wheel of her car. The court ruled that the hospital could be held responsible for the actions of its employees after hours. While I certainly do not agree that employers should be held accountable for the actions of its staff members after hours, an employer should be held accountable if the working conditions and/or hours have a direct impact on what happens to employees after they leave the job. In this case, there is a direct correlation between the doctor working 34 hours and falling asleep at the wheel of her car. No employee should be required or allowed to work 34 straight hours. The same should hold true for employees who leave an employer-sponsored function where alcohol is served and an employee is involved in an accident and charged with driving under the influence. The case is currently under appeal by a union representing resident physicians.

During the summer, a percentage of the readers of Sleep Review participated in an advertising and readership study. The following are some of the findings:

• •     58% save their copy of Sleep Review for future reference,
• •     48% pass along their copy of the magazine to an associate,
• •     62% of our readers have read four out of four of the last issues, with 19% reading three out of four,
• •     65% of our readers have gone directly to an advertiser’s Web site as a result of advertisements in Sleep Review,
• •     49% of our readers have purchased a product or service as a result of advertisements in Sleep Review, and
• •    80% of our readers see at least 50 patients in a typical week.

Thank you to those who participated in the study. We appreciate your involvement with the magazine and are grateful for your kind and thoughtful words of support.

In more somber news, William Gruen, president and founder of Ambulatory Monitoring, recently passed away after battling cancer. For more than 30 years, Gruen has been an innovator and pioneer in providing recording devices for medical centers, pharmaceutical companies, NASA, and the US Department of Defense. Ambulatory Monitoring provides equipment for monitoring physiological functioning in ambulatory subjects. Within the field of sleep medicine, Ambulatory Monitoring is best known for its Motionlogger Actigraph. Sleep Review extends its condolences to the family and friends of Gruen and the staff at Ambulatory Monitoring.

Tony Ramos
Publisher
tramos@medpubs.com