According to a recent study (A Govindarajan et al. NEJM 2015; 373: 845-33), the answer is no.  That being said, my preference would be for a well-rested surgeon.

Some of the details:

The authors conducted a retrospective, population-based, matched cohort study in Ontario, Canada.  Twelve procedures were analyzed from 1448 physicians and involving 38,978 patients.  The same physicians had his/her procedures compared when they were done after treating patients from midnight to 7am to when these were done on days that were not preceded by night call.  The physicians included in the study were attending physicians; thus this does not provide insight into whether residents or fellows would perform similarly.

Key finding:

• No difference in any primary outcome: death, readmission, or complication.  This primary outcome occurred in 22.2% after night call and 22.4% without night call.

Here’s a graph below -which depicts, from top to bottom, odds ratio for cholecystectomy (n=9322 patients, 479 physicians), gastric bypass (n=320 patients, 25 physicians), colon resection (n=2214 patients, 315 physicians), hysterectomy (n=7020 patients, 384 physicians), knee arthroplasty (n-2504 patients, 192 physicians), hip arthroplasty (n=1564 patients, 154 physicians), repair hip fracture (n=1192 patients, 166 physicians), lung resection (n=550 patients, 55 physicians), CABG (n=460 patients, 48 physicians), Spine surgery (n=3456 patients, 104 physicians), Craniotomy (n=1396patients, 66 physicians), Angioplasty (n=8980 patients, 130 physicians)

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