As mentioned elsewhere on the site, I used to be a full-time freelance medical editor. I used to collect weirdness I found or that my colleagues sent to me. The list started from papers I or my colleagues have edited, but now I’m adding to it at will.
- From Addicted to Medblogs: “If the panties opposing removal do not respond in a timely manner…”
- Reference listing: Lombardo MP, Phorpe PA. Microbes in tree swallow semen. J Wildl Dis 2000;36:460–468.
- Our results are consistent with findings in the adult literature suggesting
that 5-HT function…
Does this “adult literature” thing make you think, if only briefly, that
these authors are checking out girlie magazines?
- Patients arrived at the Biostudies Laboratory of the VA Connecticut Healthcare system, West Haven campus, and had been instructed not to eat or drink (including coffee) or smoke cigarettes from the night before.
Guess the fresh ones are OK, then? Yech. - The MTFS sample consists of 1383 families, each composed of a pair of like-sex adolescent twins and their parents, ascertained using a population-based method.
Isn’t there an easier way of determining who the parents are? - I meant to e-mail you the following jewels from my latest batch of PRS:
“I admitted an extremely large-breasted woman”…And from a research article: “The patient with the squamous cell carcinoma died after 9 months of systemic metastases, but he was happy to live his remaining life span without the foul odor from the ulcerating tumor.” The same article provided another bit of gratuitous revulsion. In a figure plate with several pieces, there was a photo with no caption. The figure was demonstrating the skin grafts they used to fix a guy who lost his arm. For sport, they included the final photo of a severed arm but provided no comment. I thus created the poetic caption: “Severed arm.” - “Even during the early 1990s, however, bellowing from the cow’s stall preserved the dogma for some time.”
I’m not touching it! - We believe that, contrary to their recommendations, intraperitoneal infiltration with 100 mg should be favored, and portside injection with small doses should be a secondary aim. In addition, the surgeon needs to carefully spay the surgical site.
- People are most often bitten on the limbs, trunk, or head. (leaving…what?)
- When coordination goes bad:”Other individuals found to be at risk were sheep owners, herders, and housewives.”
- The lost causes and operative mortality cases were treated as censored data for the analysis of survival rates.
Presumably they mean “the lost cases”? - Experience with adjuvant therapy has been used only in a small number of patients because the respectability rate for SPT of the pancreas is so high.
- “If they don’t like it, they can walk out the same door they walked into.”
- From J Clin Psychopharmacol:”A 39-year-old white female was hospitalized for the first time with a severe depressive episode with psychotic features consisting of delusions of guilt and prosecution.”
- “Any further reduction would have jeopardized the success of the block, making all our efforts vain.”
I know doctors are arrogant, but it is exceedingly rare to have one admit it. ;)P - We express our appreciation to Dr. Horacio E. Romeo for his inciteful
editorial comments… - “In the latter, and specifically in those that analize the interaction of smoking with IgE…”
One remembers that occasionally…the copy editor saves the author’s butt! ;)P - Of responsible research practices: “Unfortunately, we are unable to further present follow-up evaluations, because our research data were destroyed by the great flood in Houston this year.”
- “Amputation, by definition, results in alteration of the body.”
- From YASG (Yet Another Style Guide–TM): “Conform to preferred usage. Eschew obfuscation; eliminate, eradicate, and extirpate redundancy, circumlocution, and excessive or superfluous verbiage, along with any and all expendable extra words.”
- This reminds me of my favorite typo ever, in the Pitch in an article about STDs. It read “So-and-so came to the clinic with legions on her genitals.”
- “Associated symptoms on presentation included dysphagia (17%), dyspnea (30%), and horseness (9%).”
- “Sixteen patients were also sampled during a second course.”
- Table title: Number of precision resections per patient executed for metastasis removal in each group
- “This paradigm shit has fostered aggressive pursuits of polymorphism detection and the use of computerized technologies for rapid DNA analysis in an effort to characterize multiple genetic risk factors and their possible interactions.”
- “Forty-three patients underwent surgical repositioning of the eyes.”
- “There was no previous report of a prior history of drug overdose in the past.” (Sigh…)
- “Non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) is a leading cause of morality for both men and women in most Western countries.”
- “Because of repeated surgeries, the vagina was severely scared.”
- “Patients were required to sing informed consent.”
- This is so bad. My authors have cited a trademarked laboratory product for detecting mono antibodies. It is called the Mono Lisa.
- “The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for diagnosis of follicular malignancy by FNA were 75%, 78%, and 78%, respectfully.”
- A reference title: “Acute and chronic graft-versus-hose disease after allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell and bone marrow transplantation: a meta-analysis.”
- (OK, this is from a student paper) From a student paper about gender roles in Chaucer, discussing male and female sexuality: “Of course, with sex came virginity.”
The misunderstanding here seems both fundamental and potentially dangerous. - of domain names, profession-inappropriate: Corresponding author e-mail for an article on alcohol and drug addiction: pierre.wauthy@wanadoo.be
- Table row heading:”Impairment of self-confidence through scaring (y/n)”
- “Recombinant adenovirus was tittered on HEK 293 cells by end-point delusions…”
- “A radical prostatectomy can harm or destroy nerve bundles surrounding the prostate that help to control erection. Surgeons sometimes can save some or all of these bundles, but 50% to 80% of them become impotent.” (poor surgeons)
- “The patient was admitted with long-standing erectile dysfunction.”
- “The prognosticated survival was the best predicted in the hole study group.”
- “One important determinant of susceptibility to infection is hot sex.”
This was supposed to be “host sex.” - “The proportional risk reductions among all 6748 participants with PAD also seemed to be approximately a quarter irrespective of their history of other vascular disease or sex.”
Recent comments