So, only a fraction of the surgeons performed operation on their birthdays. Would be interesting to compare the outcomes using the same surgeon group: surgeries on birthday vs same-surgeon surgeries on other dates.
You would excepct that it is the day after your birthday the surgeon is worse (risk for hangover or less sleep).
Well, if you're lucky, your co-workers will chip in and buy a cake!
They might pitch in and buy you a small present, in return.
But they definitely expect you to bring a cake or at least some sweets.
I personally was under the impression that once you left childhood and the impatience of getting presents your birthday pretty much became just a day as usual. That also seems to be how my college treats it but it might be cultural. Europe is not a homogeneous place.
People often bring cake to work on birthdays, though.
Then again, I grew up having my birthday in the "herfstvakantie" and the habit kind of stuck :-)
How far off exactly would it need to be before it can be random chance?
All in the end to be taken with a grain of salt of course, as the planning component of operations eliminates most statistical properties :)
``` operations = np.random.randint(0, 365, 980000) pd.Series(operations).value_counts().sort_values() / 980000 ```
``` x = np.random.poisson(.0089, 1000000) x = (pd.Series(x).cumsum() / 24).round() x.groupby(x).count().iloc[:365].sort_values() / 980000 ```
Perhaps the link could be changed to the paper itself?
Especially since OP's link won't load.
Put another way, assuming a flat distribution, on any given day 980876/365 = 2687 surgeries happen. While apparently on their birthday it’s 2064.
Saying ‘only a fraction of the surgeons performed operation on their holidays’ is a strong exaggeration. It’s about 75% of surgeons.
Edit: nevermind, found it: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/suppl/2020/12/09/bmj.m4381.D...
Edit 2: it looks like solid, peer-reviewed research