California University Reveals Worst Month to Go to the Hospital

July isn't the time to get injured or sick, particularly if your nearest hospital is university-affiliated.

It is during July that residents in teaching hospitals graduate, and new, less-experienced residents take their place. For this reason, health care professionals have long talked about a 'July effect,' in which hospital care suffers during this migration of about 100,000 medical staffers a year.

Now a new study of the July effect  by University of California, San Francisco's School of Medicine has uncovered hard evidence of the phenomenon, finding that hospital fatality rates do go up during July staff changeovers, while the efficiency of care goes down.

The study's authors don't want anyone  to delay care because it's July. Instead, they recommend you bring a friend or relative to advocate on your behalf, and ask to speak to the attending physician in charge.

Solid advice for any month of the year, really.

[Yahoo!]