Junior Doctor - New Doctors and Mortality

New Doctors and Mortality

The period when newly qualified junior doctors start working in August has sometimes been dubbed the "killing season" due to the measurable increase in the number of patient deaths. Research in England has established that there is indeed a statistically significant increase in patient mortality during August, the month when junior doctors start working - when all other factors are discounted, patients are, on average, 6% more likely to die in this month. For patients not requiring surgery or suffering from cancer, the death rate increases by 7.86%.