[How many steps does a doctor take in the hospital? No difference between internists and general surgeons, but a...

To determine the number of steps taken during working days in the hospital by both internists and general surgeons and whether there is a difference between housemen, registrars and members of the staff.

Comparative analysis.

A validated pedometer was used to count the number of steps taken by housemen, registrars and staff members in the departments of internal medicine and general surgery. The 2 groups of doctors comprised 131 subjects from 13 training hospitals. Possible factors likely to affect the number of steps, such as age, sex, weight and height, were recorded.

The average number of steps taken per day was 5325 (range: 1105-10,250) and the average number per hour was 548 (range: 143-1105), with an average working day of 9.8 hours and 8.4 measured days. When corrected for age, sex and hierarchic status, no significant difference was observed between surgeons and internists (p = 0.097). There were also no differences within the hierarchic structure after correction (p = 0.936). Age and BMI seemed to be the most important factors predicting the number of steps in this population. Each additional year of age corresponded with an average decrease of 5 steps per hour on the job (p = 0.001), while each point rise in BMI (+1 kg/m) coincided with an average decrease of 20 steps per hour (p = 0.001).

After correcting for confounding factors, no differences were observed in the number of steps taken in the hospital by general surgeons and internists. There was also no difference between hierarchic levels. Age and BMI were the most important variables that predicted the number of steps taken per hour in this research population.