"Killing season," a term used to describe the time when junior doctors take over at hospitals, was thought to be just an unsettling joke. However, British
researchers found hospital mortality rates rise by 6 per cent on the first Wednesday in August. Perhaps not coincidentally, that is also the day newly qualified doctors, fresh from medical school, are let loose on the wards of [England's National Health Service] hospitals [Daily Mail].
To arrive at their result,
There could be lots of explanations for the increase, so the authors say their data doesn't mean people should shy away from hospitals during this week, but they do say the increase is statistically significant. The report was published recently in the journal PLoS ONE.
an Imperial College team looked at 300,000 emergency patients admitted to English hospitals between 2000 to 2008. They compared death rates between the first week of August, when new ...
