Patient Death Spike In Hospitals Blamed To ‘The July Effect’ Phenomenon

July is the worst time to be hospitalized. Several studies have found that hospital deaths have spiked during that particular month due to medical errors committed by new interns and residents.

Inexperienced Interns

A study published in 2011 by the Journal of General Medicine has examined a common hospital phenomenon called "The July Effect," CNN reported. According to the research, a 10 percent increase in hospital deaths have occurred during the month of July because of rookie physicians that are only beginning their first year of residency training after graduating in June.

This group of newly graduated health practitioners and interns are excited to learn more about medical care and to experience hospital goings-on firsthand, the Harvard Medical School wrote. The problem is majority of them are inexperienced and aren't used to the demands of the medical world yet, and are prone to committing mistakes that could end in patient death.

The July Effect is a famous phenomenon in the medical world, and even doctors acknowledge it. In fact, majority of them advise patients to avoid getting hospitalized during the month of July due to the high possibility of medical errors committed, according to the U.S. News & World Report.

Hold Up: Death Isn't Always The Case

These findings, however, doesn't mean that you would end up dead in hospitals in July even though you only have a simple illness. A 2013 study published in the journal Circulation by researchers at Harvard Medical School, Stanford University Hospitals, University of Southern California and the RAND Corporation found that the July Effect is most dangerous for high-risk patients.

Anupam Jena, an HMS assistant professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and the study's lead author, said it's uncommon for physicians to commit mistakes that could kill a patient. Patients who are severely ill, however, have their health hanging on by a thread and the smallest mistake could result in devastating consequences.

This is why Dr. Diane Wayne, the vice dean of education at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, launched a three-day course that offers hands-on experience in basic medical procedures that interns would likely face in emergency rooms.

However, some experts believe that the July Effect isn't that huge because there's constant clinical oversight in hospitals, the U.S. News & World Report noted. Attending physicians and chief residents are always on-call to oversee the interns.

Doctors and healthcare staff have been accidentally killing more than 251,000 patients annually in the U.S. due to medical errors, according to a study published in the BMJ Journals in May. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the country, coming after heart disease and cancer, EurekAlert reported.