Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Cognitive Function Among Cardiology Fellows

Conventional methods of qualifying personal wellbeing are limited by poor insight about the emotional and behavioral corollaries of stress and burnout (e.g., depersonalization, sleep alterations, heart rate variability). While self-care is often the preferred option for those coping with stress or burnout in challenging situations, it may be the only option in low-resource settings with limited access to professional management. Similarly, many healthcare workers and trainees acknowledge that self-care is a critical component to overall wellbeing, yet they also admit that multiple barriers interfere with the effectiveness of this practice. First, self-care interventions can only be effective if impacted persons recognize the need for interventions, act on that need, and learn which methods are effective on an individual basis. Furthermore, testing modalities (e.g., hormonal assays, polysomnography, electrophysiology) for stress and its downstream syndrome of burnout not only are prohibitively expensive, but they also require significant time and cannot be broadly disseminated within reasonable limits. As such, approaches for monitoring parameters of wellness are critically needed, and if successful, those data can allow for streamlined mental health interventions for those completing fellowship training before symptoms of burnout escalate further.

Aim 1: To determine whether physiologic metrics of sleep and heart rate variability correlate with executive function metrics post 12- or 24-hour call in a 12-month period.