CMAJ • April 22, 2008; 178 (9). doi:10.1503/cmaj.1080004.
© 2008 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association.
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Letters

A "take with a grain of salt" label for Holiday Review articles

Christopher Naugler, MD MSc

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS

For the past decade CMAJ has published a series of articles inspired by the holiday season in a section called the Holiday Review. Some of these articles consist of quirky questions addressed with real data whereas others are, in the words of CMAJ's editors, "evidence-free exaggeration and premeditated preposterousness." Although these articles are a welcome holiday diversion for many physicians, confusion has sometimes arisen because these articles are indexed in MEDLINE as if they were real research articles.

To see if these articles have been mistaken for evidence-based articles, I searched Google Scholar for citations of Holiday Review articles published in 1999–2006 and then reviewed these citations. In some instances, the authors citing Holiday Review articles clearly understood that they were citing a tongue-in-cheek "study." However, in at least 4 instances, the citing authors appear to have mistakenly cited evidence-free articles as if they were real studies: a citation1 of a case report in which the patient was a cartoon character,2 a citation3 of my own completely evidence-free paper4 and 2 other citations5,6 of Holiday Review spoof studies.7,8 If CMAJ's Holiday Review articles are to continue being indexed in MEDLINE, perhaps it would be prudent to insert a note at the end of each evidence-free abstract stating that the article is for entertainment purposes only and is not a real study.

Footnotes

Competing interests: None declared.


REFERENCES

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  2. Cyr A, Cyr L-O, Cyr C. Acquired growth hormone deficiency and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in a subject with repeated head trauma, or Tintin goes to the neurologist. CMAJ 2004;171:1433-4.[Free Full Text]
  3. Michels PJ, Probst JC, Godenick MT, et al. Anxiety and anger among family practice residents: a South Carolina Family Practice Research Consortium study. Acad Med 2003;78:69-79.[Medline]
  4. Osmun WE, Naugler C. The impact of hissy fits in primary care. CMAJ 1998;159:1457-9.[Abstract]
  5. Taylor S, Watt M. Emergency department assessment of abdominal pain: clinical indicator tests for detecting peritonism. Eur J Emerg Med 2005;12:275-7.[CrossRef][Medline]
  6. Mangion K. The stethoscope. Malta Med J 2007;19:41-4.
  7. Worrall G, Holmes P, Robbins M. Bubble bubble, abdominal trouble: a new test to chew on. CMAJ 1999;161:1520-1.[Free Full Text]
  8. Hanley WB, Hanley AJG. The efficacy of stethoscope placement when not in use: traditional versus "cool." CMAJ 2000;163:1562-3.[Abstract/Free Full Text]




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