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Sleep medicine education: are medical schools and residency programs napping on the job?

Nature Clinical Practice Neurology volume 4, pages 344–345 (2008)Cite this article

Sleep disorders account for an estimated 16 billion US dollars in medical costs annually.1,2 Each year, around 50–70 million US citizens experience chronic sleep disorders that have a profound negative impact on their daytime functioning and overall health.3,4 The 2005 Sleep in America Poll by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) revealed an upward trend in the prevalence of sleep problems since 1999.5 Physicians in training are among those affected by sleep disorders; despite implementation of the 80 h work week, this group continues to endure sleep loss at the expense of daytime functioning.1 Although sleep loss is an undisputed epidemic in our society, 70% of respondents in the NSF poll reported that their doctor had never asked them about their sleep patterns, even though most respondents felt that sleep issues should be discussed with their physician.5

In 1978, the American Sleep Disorders Association showed that fewer than 10% of medical schools in the US offered adequate training in sleep medicine, and that 46% provided no sleep medicine training at all in their curriculum.6 A follow-up survey in 1990 demonstrated that there had been little improvement in exposure to sleep medicine training during medical school, and, when sleep was covered, it usually occupied less than 2 h of instruction over a 4-year course.7

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CE Gamaldo is an Assistant Professor and RE Salas is a Sleep Medicine Fellow in the Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.,

    Charlene E Gamaldo & Rachel E Salas

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  1. Charlene E Gamaldo
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  2. Rachel E Salas
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Correspondence to Charlene E Gamaldo.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Gamaldo, C., Salas, R. Sleep medicine education: are medical schools and residency programs napping on the job?. Nat Rev Neurol 4, 344–345 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpneuro0808

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