Experience mix is crucial, especially in a teaching hospital in July ("New Medical Residents and Patient Mortality-Does the 'Nurse Effect' Lessen the 'July Effect'?," Best of the Blog, July).

My first July as an RN included my first code as an RN. The charge nurse (more than three years working on that unit) started the advanced cardiac life support protocol, but ended up running the whole code because the physician answering the page immediately confessed it was his first code. She just handed him the chart (open to the orders page) and said, "Write what I say." When we finished, he signed it as if he'd run the code. The patient was fine, but the outcome would have been different without sufficiently experienced nursing staff.

Margaret B.G., via Facebook