Table 2. Anesthesiologists giving 15-minute breaks mid-morning over a 1.5-hour period.
aThe sample sizes refer to the numbers of calculated 5% lower prediction limits of surgical procedure times. This was slightly less than the number of cases [1].
bColumn entries are percentage (%) chances of being able to give one break among the rooms, between 15 minutes after the start of surgical procedure(s) and the end of the surgical procedure(s), along with 99% lower and upper confidence intervals [1].
cThe “best chance” means the case is paired with the adjacent room giving the largest amount of overlapping time. The “least chance” means the other room. These columns with two rooms can be applied in the United States as breaks for trainees. All columns are predicated on there being another anesthesiologist available as a backup if the anesthesiologist is alone, giving a morning break.
dThe timing “throughout the workday” could refer to that appropriate for a breast milk pumping session [1] because women a few months after giving birth would often need three sessions during a full (>10-hour) workday. However, the 15-minute duration of the current table is insufficient for breast milk pumping.
eBreaks could be more often given in the morning than if distributed randomly throughout the workday. This result was caused by the period 9:00 to 10:30 being too early in the workday for many of the long surgical procedures performed at the adult inpatient surgical suite to be ending.
| Location | Sample sizea | Single casesb | Two rooms, best chanceb,c | Two rooms, least chanceb,c | Three roomsb |
| Ambulatory surgery center, adult, throughout the workdayd | 7,987 | 33.3 (31.9, 34.7) | 32.0 (30.7, 33.4) | 24.1 (22.9, 25.4) | 23.5 (22.3, 24.7) |
| Ambulatory surgery center, break starting 9:00 to 10:30 | 1,492 | 30.8 (27.7, 33.9) | 30.3 (27.3, 33.5) | 23.1 (20.3, 26.0) | 22.2 (19.5, 25.1) |
| Children’s hospital, throughout the workdayd | 4,872 | 33.0 (31.2, 34.7) | 31.8 (30.0, 33.5) | 25.5 (23.9, 27.1) | 24.6 (23.0, 26.2) |
| Children’s hospital, break starting 9:00 to 10:30 | 985 | 40.5 (36.5, 44.6) | 38.8 (34.8, 42.9) | 29.2 (25.6, 33.1) | 27.3 (23.7, 31.1) |
| Adult inpatient surgical suite, throughout the workdayd | 17,498 | 65.9 (64.9, 66.8) | 64.7e (63.8, 65.7) | 53.6e (52.6, 54.5) | 45.3 (44.3, 46.3) |
| Adult surgical suite, break starting 9:00 to 10:30 | 3,854 | 78.7 (76.9, 80.3) | 80.2e (78.5, 81.8) | 66.4e (64.4, 68.4) | 45.3 (43.2, 47.4) |