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This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science, I am Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute.

July is coming. It’s a time to fire up the barbecue, hit the beaches and watch the fireworks. It’s definitely not a time to be in the hospital. Because fatal medical errors peak in July, an increase that happens to coincide with the annual arrival of new medical residents. That’s according to a study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Could new docs really be deadly? That’s what sociologists at the University of California, San Diego, were wondering. They examined almost a quarter of a million death certificates issued in the U.S. between 1979 and 2006. They focused on those that showed a mistake with medication as the primary cause of death. They then recorded the month in which the error was made, and whether the incident occurred in a county with teaching hospitals. Turned out that fatal medication errors spiked¹ only in July, which is when new residents hit the wards². And this peak was seen only in regions where training takes place.

The results suggest that freshly minted medical residents may need added supervision³, or extra lessons in dispensing⁴ meds safely. It also suggests that you use extra caution next month with the grill⁵, on the shore and at the fireworks.

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I am Karen Hopkin.