Trawling the net I came across a US study 2 months ago, led by University of California-San Diego researchers which reported a 10 percent increase nationally in medication errors that killed (!) patients during the month of July, the traditional start date for new residents.

One of my recurrent soap box topics is the lack of adequate systems to protect and avoid medical practitioners from making mistakes due to inexperience, inadvertence or otherwise. Obviously this is most important of all in relation to junior doctors.

If (as I suspect) Australia mirrors the US, even if at 1/10th the rate, this is a staggering statistic….