MJA Christmas Competition 2009: our humour and inspiration stimulus package

It’s been a tough year. To survive the economic downturn (not technically a recession, but it feels like one), we have been forced to tighten our belts, hire DVDs and stay home for cheese on toast. Here at the MJA, we have decided this is a time to keep smiling, even as property prices plummet (or skyrocket, depending on which paper you read), the mercury rises, and the promise of health reform languishes. As the prospect of the annual beachside holiday recedes and you attempt to convince morose and monosyllabic teens that playing under the sprinkler in the garden really is as much fun as the Gold Coast, we are delighted to entertain you. Thus, we offer you an alternative to turkey sandwiches and reruns of Bush Christmas by announcing our own stimulus package — the MJA Christmas Competition. As usual, the calibre of the entries this year was very high and, once again, the number of submissions record-breaking — supporting the premise that the health care industry really may be recession-proof.

In keeping with our theme, and proving finally that men are wimps, Furyk and colleagues show that when it comes to stimulating pain, it is preferable to pull a bandaid off fast rather than slow, especially if your patient happens to be hirsute. So when you find yourself in the position of removing a sticky dressing after one of the aforementioned teens has done a skid on the concrete under the sprinkler, you can reassure him that you are a health professional and you have the evidence. Then just rip it off (→ Fast versus slow bandaid removal: a randomised trial).

Another humour-stimulating offering comes from Mullins, who, while working in East Timor, found that dancing about an operating suite clutching a newborn baby and repeatedly whacking oneself over the head does not translate into any language. But he certainly learned one way to communicate — by stimulating a smile, both from his bemused colleagues and MJA staff members (→ Out of my depth in East Timor).

If exciting your guests’ jaded appetites causes you to consider a seafood alternative to turkey this year, perhaps you should take note of Davies and Bate, who suggest that the bones of Dory are the least visible on x-ray of the common fish species they examined (→ Relative radio-opacity of commonly consumed fish species in South East Queensland on lateral neck x-ray: an ovine model). To avoid a trip to the emergency department, maybe have prawns instead — if you can afford them, of course. In a more poignant vein, offerings from Livermore (→ Christmas celebrates birth: new life, new love, new hope), Hodgkinson (→ The pressure of time) and O’Callaghan and colleagues (→ ”The moment is all we have“: patients and visitors reflect on a staff Christmas choir) remind us of the spirit of the season, and Johnson remembers with a smile how a slip of a patient’s tongue can make even the most exhausted medical team fall about the ward in fits of restorative laughter (→ A prescription for a smile).

While digesting our erudite Christmas offerings this year along with the turkey, Dory, or prawns, you might like to peruse Parry’s take on the DSM-IV — while concurring with an “‘ah, yes’ and ‘hmmm’ (shorter, higher pitched subtype, usually indicative of agreement)” Parry (→ Cough disorder: an allegory on DSM-IV).

But there must be a winner, even among a selection as strong as this. Our ballot, conducted with the utmost secrecy, akin to inviting a peer review, showed that the True Story with the most votes was Geoffrey Mullins’ account of obstetrics in a developing country. In the Christmas Offerings category, the winner was Francis Bowden’s thought-provoking musings on the great divide between physicians and surgeons, “When two tribes go to war”.

Both winners will receive a fantastic hamper courtesy of the MJA as an extra stimulus to further creativity. Finally, remember that we appreciate and enjoy your every contribution throughout the year, and wish you all the peace and goodwill of the season.