Medical researchers have confirmed—to a “statistically significantly” degree—a fear long held by the British: do not check yourself into a hospital in early August. This calendar-driven warning is due to the annual arrival of new doctors to hospital staffs on the first Wednesday of August. What has been commonly assumed by British citizens was examined by experts at the Imperial College of London who reviewed patient data from 2000-2008. They discovered, from analyzing nearly 300,000 records, “a small but significant 6% higher odds of death for all patients and a statistically significant 8% higher odds of death for medical patients in the week following the first Wednesday in August than in the week following the last Wednesday in July.”
                                                                                                                                                     -Noel Brinkerhoff

Early In-Hospital Mortality Following Trainee Doctors' First Day at Work (by Min Hua Jen, Alex Bottle, Azeem Majeed, Derek Bell and Paul Aylin, PLoS ONE)