Christmas 2012

 

Every year at this time, some of the major medical journals publish special Christmas issues. The BMJ and the CMAJ offer some open access articles for our holiday reading. From this year’s December issues of the British Medical Journal: – Christmas 2012

• Pain over speed bumps in diagnosis of acute appendicitis: diagnostic accuracy study
• Nutritional content of supermarket ready meals and recipes by television chefs in the United Kingdom: cross sectional study
• Why Rudolph’s nose is red: observational study [including video]
• Using a dog’s superior olfactory sensitivity to identify Clostridium difficile in stools and patients: proof of principle study
• The tooth fairy and malpractice

The CMAJ’s Holiday Reading [open access]

The Medical Journal of Australia‘s Christmas Crackers [scroll down the page; full text by subscription]

See older Christmas issue entries   especially Christmas Songs for Christmas Eve

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Brand names make it to the OED!

I first created this post in 2007, and apart from the home page, it has been the most viewed page on my blog (over 6,000 views). So here it is again, with a link to the latest OED update.

It’s fascinating to peruse the new words added to the OED. (Here is the latest update, December 2010.) Brand names often enter the language as generic terms, and I’ve listed a few of them below. (I wonder who they have in mind with the word “flip-flopper”. And what on earth is a cotylosaur? I thought “chicklet” meant a little piece of gum, but I was disappointed to discover that it means a small chick or girl.)

Google
Goo·gle – verb: to use the Google search engine to find information on the Internet.

Botox
bo·tox – noun or verb – A proprietary name for: a preparation of botulinum toxin which is injected into specific muscles to create temporary paralysis, as part of the treatment of various medical conditions and in the cosmetic treatment of wrinkles of the face (esp. frown lines and crow’s feet). Also: treatment by this means; a course of such treatment.

Popsicle
pop·sicle – noun – A proprietary name for: an ice lolly.

Hoover
hoo·ver – verb: to clean with a vacuum cleaner (Chiefly British)

Kleenex [see more ads]
klee·nex – noun: the proprietary name of an absorbent disposable cleansing paper tissue.

Xerox
xe·rox – noun or verb: a name for a copying machine or the act of reproducing printed, written, or pictorial matter by xerography.

Thermos
ther·mos –noun: a vacuum bottle or similar container lined with an insulating material, such as polystyrene, to keep liquid hot or cold

Prozac
pro·zac -noun: a brand of fluoxetine hydrochloride
Spandex
span·dex –noun: a synthetic fiber composed of a long-chain polymer, used chiefly in the manufacture of garments to add elasticity

JELL-O
jell·o -noun: brand of dessert made from a mixture of gelatin, sugar, and fruit flavoring, dissolved in hot water and chilled until firm

Band-Aid
band·aid -noun: adhesive bandage with a gauze pad in the center, used to cover minor abrasions and cuts

Viagra
vi·ag·ra -noun: sildenafil citrate, used to treat impotence

Frigidaire
frig·i·daire – noun: the proprietary name of a brand of refrigerator.

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Christmas Songs for Christmas Eve

Here is a selection of Christmas songs, ranging from the sublime (the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s Hallelujah Chorus – A  Random Act of Culture) to the ridiculous (Adam Sandler’s Santa Song). Turn up your sound, and have a very Merry Christmas!

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• Tom Lehrer. A Christmas Carol
• Sufian Stevens. That was the Worst Christmas Ever another version
• Eartha Kitt. Santa Baby
• Adam Sandler.   Santa Song
  Note: If you did not like this, you will certainly not enjoy Sandler’s Chanukah Song
• This isn’t a song, but it is certainly enjoyable: The Digital Story of the Nativity

Christmas 2010: BMJ Christmas issue

It’s that time of year again, the publication of the annual BMJ Christmas issue. Here are some highlights:

• Welcome to our feast of fools [editorial]
• Effect on gastric function and symptoms of drinking wine, black tea, or schnapps with a Swiss cheese fondue: randomised controlled crossover trial
• Testing the validity of the Danish urban myth that alcohol can be absorbed through feet: open labelled self experimental study
• Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people
• The Lives of Doctors: Phantom vibration syndrome among medical staff: a cross sectional survey
• Primary Care: Reflections of Father Christmas’s GP

See also  CMAJ 14 December 2010, Volume 182, Issue 18 Holiday Reading ; previous posts about Christmas.

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Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year

Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes has won the 2009 Diagram Prize, awarded annually since 1978 by The Bookseller, a British trade magazine for the publishing industry.    Read about the history of the prize in Wikipedia.

Horace Bent, The Bookseller magazine’s legendary diarist and custodian of the prize, said: Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes proved to be the initial front runner. It defended its poll-topping position despite strong support for the spoon-carrying Third Reich, once again attempting to muscle in on someone else’s territory. [See below for more about the spoon book.]
Read more about the current winner here.     And read part of the book – great photos!

This year’s finalists:

• What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua?
• Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich
• Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter    
• Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots    More>>
• The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

 

Product description: Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich is a detailed, heavily illustrated reference book containing relevant historical exposition on many of the personal, organizational and commemorative spoons of the 3rd Reich period from 1933 to 1945. These spoons, unlike most other collectibles from this period, were actually owned and used daily by the people and organizations of those times. The book includes many spoon types, for example: Hitler’s personal silverware, Red Cross, SS, the U-47 etc. With over 200 photos / graphics and over 19,000 words of text, the book extensively explores the relevant historical highlights which in turn illuminate this unique period in history as reflected by the spoons. These spoons are history that you can hold in your hand and were once in the hands of the German history makers of the 3rd Reich era. As the years pass, the 3rd Reich era will move from the monster of history to just plain history as did the Napoleonic era and like Napoleon collectibles, there is increasing interest in acquiring 3rd Reich collectibles, although understandably relatively modest in our lifetime. Thus, this book should be of interest to the collector and educational for the casual reader of history.

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Lake Superior State University 2009 List of Banished Words

Here is the 2009 list of banished words from Lake Superior State University. From the site:
Lake Superior State University “maverick” word-watchers, fresh from the holiday “staycation” but without an economic “bailout” even after a “desperate search,” have issued their 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. This year’s list may be more “green” than any of the previous lists and includes words and phrases that people from “Wall Street to Main Street” say they love “not so much” and wish to have erased from their “carbon footprint.”

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CMAJ Holiday Review 2009

It’s that time of year again, when the major medical journals publish their Christmas (AKA holiday) reading. Below are some of my favourites from the CMAJ Holiday Review, from the December 2009 issue of CMAJ. For past Christmas issues, see Christmas Journal Issues.

 Faux Review: A report on the zombie outbreak of 2009: how mathematics can save us (no, really)
An outbreak of zombification wreaked havoc recently in Canada and the rest of the world. Mathematical models were created to establish the speed of zombie infection and evaluate potential scenarios for intervention, mainly because mathematicians don’t have anything better to do with their time. We review the development of these models and their effect on the undead.

Research: Snappy answers to stupid questions: an evidence-based framework for responding to peer-review feedback
We developed a Scale of Silliness (SOS) and a Scale of Belligerence (SOB) to facilitate the assessment of inadequate peer-review feedback and guide users in preparing suitable responses to it. The SOB score is tempered by users’ current mood, as captured by the Mood Reflective Index (MRI), and dictates the Appropriate Degree of Response (ADR) for the particular situation.

Satire: Compendium of rejected CMAJ manuscripts: 2009

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Are doctors whippersnappers?

I just came across this delightful poem, published by Gilda Radner in the November 17, 1988 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine:

DOCTORS ARE WHIPPERSNAPPERS

Doctors are whippersnappers in ironed white coats
Who spy up your rectums and look down your throats
And press you and poke you with sterilized tools
And stab at solutions that pacify fools.
I used to revere them and do what they said
Till I learned what they learned on was already dead.

Radner G. Doctors are whippersnappers. New England J Med 1988; 319 (2): 1358.

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Banished Words

 
Since 1976 the Lake Superior State University has issued its annual list of banished words. Here is their introduction for the 2008 offering:

Lake Superior State University “maverick” word-watchers, fresh from the holiday “staycation” but without an economic “bailout” even after a “desperate search,” have issued their 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. This year’s list may be more “green” than any of the previous lists and includes words and phrases that people from “Wall Street to Main Street” say they love “not so much” and wish to have erased from their “carbon footprint.”

Some examples from the current list:

• Maverick [of course]
   ”The constant repetition of this word for months before the US election diluted whatever meaning it previously had. Even the comic offshoot ‘mavericky’ was terribly overused. A minimum five-year banishment of both words is suggested so they will not be available during the next federal election.”
• Bailout
  “Use of emergency funds to remove toxic assets from banks’ balance sheets is not a bailout. When your cousin calls you from jail in the middle of the night, he wants a bailout.”
• Staycation
  “Occurrences of this word are going up with gas prices.’Vacation’ does not mean ‘travel,’ nor does travel always involve vacation. Let’s send this word on a slow boat to nowhere.”
• Winner of Five Nominations
  “It hasn’t won an Academy Award yet. It has only been NOMINATED!”

Here are some random choices from previous years:

• 1976: Implement and Viable – Gobbledygook disguised as intelligence: as in “that is not a viable alternative which we can implement.” Meaning: “We don’t want to do it and think you have a crazy idea here.”
• 1985: Near miss – should be ‘near hit’ because it didn’t nearly miss, it actually did miss.
• 2001: Negative growth – As opposed to positive shrinking. ‘Gifted’ from the world of “morons in three-piece suits trying to sugar-coat their incompetence”

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Christmas 2008 Research from the BMJ

     The British Medical Journal continues in 2008 its annual tradition of publishing important research related to Christmas.   See also:  BMJ Christmas Issues and read articles going back to 1995.

Below are this year’s offerings, available free online (because they are research, after all).     2008 Seasonal Fayre ;  2008 Christmas Podcasts

Head and neck injury risks in heavy metal: head bangers stuck between rock and a hard bass
Head banging to heavy metal is a popular dance form, but it increases the risk of head and neck injury. The effects may be lessened with reduced head and neck motion, head banging to lower tempo songs or to every second beat, and using protective equipment such as neck braces, say Australian researchers Declan Patton and Andrew McIntosh. The study helps to explain why metal concert goers often seem dazed, confused, and incoherent.

Rugby (the religion of Wales) and its influence on the Catholic church: should Pope Benedict XVI be worried?
Researcher Gareth Payne and his two colleagues from Cardiff investigate whether there is any substance to the intriguing urban legend that has arisen in Wales in recent times: “Every time Wales win the rugby grand slam, a Pope dies, except for 1978 when Wales were really good, and two Popes died.” Wales won the Grand Slam in 2008 – so should Pope Benedict XVI be worried?

Appointments timed in proximity to annual milestones and compliance with screening: randomised controlled trial
In this randomised controlled trial, attendance rates for colorectal cancer screening were higher in December and around attendees’ birthdays. Compliance with screening programmes may therefore be improved by timing invitations in proximity to annual milestones, conclude researchers Geir Hoff and Michael Bretthauer.

Frankincense: systematic review
Edzard Ernst, the UK’s only professor of complementary medicine, systematically reviews the evidence on frankincense – a tree resin that was one of the first ever Christmas presents and is now a popular complementary remedy. He concludes that, although frankincense does not bestow supernatural instant youth or eternal life as many claims would have it, it has encouraging anti-inflammatory properties. (Picture credit: Jerry Mason/Science Photo Library)

Mortality on Mount Everest, 1921-2006: descriptive study
Thousands of mountaineers have attempted to scale Mount Everest, the highest point on earth, at 8850 metres above sea level. The death rate above base camp is 1.3%. Paul Firth and colleagues examined the circumstances of such deaths, to establish patterns of mortality among climbers over 86 years. In an accompanying article, Jeremy S Windsor wonders how to explain the benign presence he met while climbing Mount Everest.

Right-left discrimination among medical students: questionnaire and psychometric study
Male students were better than female students at distinguishing right from left, and aspiring surgeons were better than aspiring GPs or medical doctors, according to this questionnaire and psychometric study. Are left handed people the last great neglected minority, asks an accompanying editorial.

Festive Medical Myths

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