The treachery of spoons

This backs up previous research into similar treachery by inanimate domestic objects in Prescrire International in April 2008 which agrees that using common household spoons to administer drugs carries a risk of dosing errors.

 

So, what other bad things have spoons been up to, in the world of medicine?

 

There is a great deal on portion size, the epidemic of obesity and the complicity of spoons. Here’s just one example. Two of the authors, Brian and Koert, also wrote the spoon research in the first paragraph.

 

What is it with the spoons, lads?

 

Their paper was in the September 2006 edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine entitled ‘Ice Cream Illusions. Bowls, Spoons, and Self-Served Portion Sizes’. There isn’t much about ice cream, bowls are key but spoons are in there. Brian and his chum suggest that because people eat most of what they serve themselves, cues that lead them to serve over-large portions could also lead them to over-eat. They tested this out on 85 nutrition experts who were attending an ice cream social (!), randomly giving them either a smaller or a larger bowl and either a smaller or larger ice cream scoop. When the nutrition experts were given a larger bowl, they served themselves nearly a third more without being aware of it. Their serving size also increased by 14.5% when they were given a larger serving spoon.  

 

There are some spoon based injury reports which perplex in their brevity but should still put you on your guard against the treachery of spoons. A porcelain spoon was broken and swallowed during a convulsion, according to VKS Leung in the December 2007 edition of The Hong Kong Medical Journal.  This was probably as a consequence of some over zealous first aid with the wrong type of spoon. I vaguely recollect that the first aid for epilepsy may be wrong with any type of spoon nowadays.....

 

Researchers in the Indian Journal of Gastroenterology of January 2004 struggled with a different spoon issue altogether, when they published a case report on a self-inflicted stab wound. Unlikely as it sounds, this was achieved in the abdomen, with a spoon. I have no further details on why, which end or what type of spoon. 

 

Similarly, another incomplete and baffling account emerges from 2002, when a case report on the ‘Removal of a mis-swallowed long spoon via gastrotomy’ appeared in the Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences. The mild mistranslation that implies that long spoons can be swallowed properly is charming, whilst the mischief caused by the spoon clearly is not.   

 

Finally, some Australians extend their methodological experience in epidemiology by studying spoons in the wild, publishing their important spoon based research in a BMJ Christmas edition from 2005. We have ‘The case of the disappearing teaspoons: Longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute’ by scientists at the Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health Research in  Melbourne. Clearly, it's not our taxes, so it's OK.

 

They set out to determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether displacement is correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom. They kept tabs on 70 numbered teaspoons placed in tearooms around their research institute, observed weekly over five months. The results showed 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of a teaspoon was 81 days. The half life of teaspoons in communal tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for those in rooms associated with particular research groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons' value and they estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons.

 

That’ll be enough about spoons for now. I have to go and count mine. And insure myself aginst them.