Is Medical Malpractice More Prevalent in July? | Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp

If you’re not a doctor or a nurse, you may not know that mortality rates at hospitals rise between 4 and 12 percent in July. What causes this midsummer upswing in deaths? Heat-related injuries? No, and the answer may have you scrambling to cancel any elective surgery slated for July.

According to results from a study reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the reason there are so many fatalities is that on  July 1, inexperienced interns, residents and nurses start work at many of the nation’s hospitals. The new health care providers are eager to start practicing medicine. On you.

This isn’t to say that all new doctors and nurses are going to kill you. In fact, nurses may be your best line of defense. But as a group, the new health workers are not consistently supervised. They can be individually issuing medication orders and performing and interpreting tests, and this can lead to a higher chance that they might miss something that an experienced health care worker would catch.

July isn’t the only time there are errors and mistakes made by medical professionals. As experienced medical malpractice attorneys, we know that 100,000 American’s die every year as a result of medical mistakes and errors. Each of those cases represents a family who is now without their loved one. The doctor or medical worker who caused the medical mistake needs to be held responsible. It is important for a victim of a medical mistake to hire an experienced lawyer. Please look over our Top Ten Tips From Experienced Medical Malpractice Lawyers guide.

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