{"id":9008,"date":"2018-12-16T13:32:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T18:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/?p=9008"},"modified":"2018-12-27T10:05:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T15:05:19","slug":"id-doctors-are-lousy-golfers-and-time-to-pick-your-favorite-cartoon-caption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/id-doctors-are-lousy-golfers-and-time-to-pick-your-favorite-cartoon-caption\/2018\/12\/16\/","title":{"rendered":"ID Doctors Are Lousy Golfers, and Time to Pick Your Favorite Cartoon Caption"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some might wonder how people who take care of patients, who deal with illness and suffering on a regular basis, can find humor in medicine.<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively, one could take the opposite perspective &#8212; with so much misery around all the time, how could we survive without humor?<\/p>\n<p>Clearly the folks at <em>The\u00a0BMJ<\/em> are in the latter camp, as each year they bring us some high-quality chuckles with their annual Christmas issue.<\/p>\n<p>Take <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/363\/bmj.k4859\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this recently published paper on golf habits among doctors<\/a>, a leisure activity apparently quite unpopular among us ID physicians (my explanation below):<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">That&#39;s because we don&#39;t want to catch Lyme, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, RMSF, Powassan, etc. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZSxMwro6mI\">https:\/\/t.co\/ZSxMwro6mI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Paul Sax (@PaulSaxMD) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PaulSaxMD\/status\/1072616052113186816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 11, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Note that there was also a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/bmj\/363\/bmj.k4859\/F4.large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">strong inverse correlation between the percentage of golfers in a given specialty and their average golf handicap<\/a> (whatever that is). I&#8217;m pretty sure this means that we stink at it.<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s time to add to the holiday fun by offering you the chance to vote on your favorite caption from our last contest.<\/p>\n<p>As always, we used a rigorously tested algorithm to come up with the finalists. This fully automated process harnesses the full computing power of the NEJM Journal Watch servers, slowing other publishing activities to a crawl.<\/p>\n<p>First the cartoon (thank you again, Anne Sax), then your vote, please.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/11\/DesertIsleBirdsjpg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-8944\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/11\/DesertIsleBirdsjpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"431\" height=\"457\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/11\/DesertIsleBirdsjpg.jpg 859w, https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/11\/DesertIsleBirdsjpg-283x300.jpg 283w, https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/11\/DesertIsleBirdsjpg-768x815.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 431px) 100vw, 431px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"polls-50\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Which is the funniest cartoon caption?<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-50-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>\"Any recent travel?\" <small>(39%, 171 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 39%;\" title=\"&quot;Any recent travel?&quot; (39% | 171 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>\"I know what the Internet says, but Lyme disease is not endemic here.\" <small>(28%, 125 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 28%;\" title=\"&quot;I know what the Internet says, but Lyme disease is not endemic here.&quot; (28% | 125 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>\"I think my water just broke.\" <small>(20%, 90 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 20%;\" title=\"&quot;I think my water just broke.&quot; (20% | 90 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>\"As a matter of fact, a lot of patients complain about inconvenient parking. Why do you ask?\" <small>(13%, 57 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 13%;\" title=\"&quot;As a matter of fact, a lot of patients complain about inconvenient parking. Why do you ask?&quot; (13% | 57 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center;\">Total Voters: <strong>443<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_50_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"30531a514b\" \/>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some might wonder how people who take care of patients, who deal with illness and suffering on a regular basis, can find humor in medicine. Alternatively, one could take the opposite perspective &#8212; with so much misery around all the time, how could we survive without humor? Clearly the folks at The\u00a0BMJ are in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-infectious-diseases"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}