Last year the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery made the startling announcement that what time of the day you have your surgery can make all the difference to the success of the procedure as well as the time it takes you to recover afterwards.

It seem that those patients having surgery in the morning tend to fare better than those whose operations are done out of normal working hours between 4pm and 6am.


The study that they did involved 203 patients who underwent orthopaedic surgery for various reasons. Of these patients, it was found that 27 per cent of the ones operated on during the twilight hours had a metal instrument or some surgical object left inside them, and went on to have further surgery to remove it. This incidence compared to just 3 per cent of patients who had their surgery in the course of a normal working day. The out of hours group also had more unplanned follow-up operations needed to fix other problems with the first operation.


Although it is natural that we all want immediate treatment, it may be in a our best interest, if there is an option, to wait until morning. The reality of this situation seems to be that surgical team who are on call at night might be tired having just finished a normal day shift, for instance. So it seems that mornings are definitely best, but don't all rush at once!