Monday, August 09, 2010

MDOD Original Research: Pain Scale Less Accurate than Queries on Penis Size

BACKGROUND: People lie about their pain level and about their penis size. They lie for any number of reasons, including that some people are just fucking liars. But how many lie? We posit that the number of people who lie or exaggerate their pain level is greater than the number who lie about their penis size. After all, we ask ALL out patients about their pain level, but, except in the most uncomfortable of social gaffes, we rarely ask women about their penis size. Our hope in conducting this research is to force those whose sole job it is to collect and collate "statistics" regarding perception of pain have  to get real jobs, and, to relegate pain scales to the trash heap of stupid ideas created by people whoring themselves for grant money. We seek to do this with nothing more than a simple dick joke.



METHODS: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was not conducted. In this way our research is at least as robust as that which produced the Baker-Wang 'pain scale'. Instead of doing really complicated stuff, we just asked, 'How big is your penis'. All answers were taken at face value, not verified by clinical exam, insight, or objective measures, and duly noted on important documents that are now in the possession of the FBPI. 

RESULTS: HOW BIG IS YOUR PENIS?

Fucking Huge
  21 (11%)
Ginormous
  12 (6%)
Ten inches
  6 (3%)
About six inches
  36 (20%)
Like a Pepsi can
  6 (3%)
About four inches
  5 (2%)
A useless nubbin
  10 (5%)
I have a vagina
  84 (46%)


CONCLUSIONS: Kidrock says, "Pussy and blow, that's how I live", and his disciples crowd the nation's ERs. To get either it is sometimes necessary to stretch the truth. Hence we see 11% of poll respondents calling their junk "fucking huge", and this equates well to those who rate their pain as anything greater than 10 (on a scale of one to 10). Another 6% rate their penis as "ginormous", which is, to most, even bigger than 'fucking huge" so these respondents may be safely grouped with the former group, making for a 17% damned liar categorization.

3% of the male populous may be hung like Sheriff Bart or me, but I doubt it. If you don't know who Sheriff Bart is then you are either young or humorless... below is an instructive video.



20% answered, "about six inches", and this is, in fact, about right.

If your penis is "like a pepsi can", you are either a fan of Borat and wanted to let us know how almost hip you are five years after the fact, or you have elephantiasis/lypmphatic filariasis and you are sick.

"Four inches"... sorry dude, but good on you for admitting it. A monastic life for you or a mail order bride.

A "useless nubbin". What kind of man calls his twig and berries a 'useless nubbin'? Either a very cagey pick-up artist or Michael Moore, both liars, add 5% to the "liar" side of the ledger.

Finally, 46% of our poll respondents are female? I think not. No matter. I have no doubt that we have many trans-gender readers and a hearty huzzah! to you all.

Therefore, we conclude that asking someone to rate their pain on a scale of one to ten is less accurate than asking a dude how big his penis is. A coin flip would be better.

BOTTOM LINE: Doctors must combine of a good patient history with a solid physical exam (and sprinkle in some imaging or labs as appropriate) to properly assess a patient's pain control needs.

Future MDOD research studies to include...
1. How high is up?
2. Why is air?
3. Who farted?

22 comments:

  1. Kid Rock couldn't carry the late great George Jone's Jock Strap...

    "Rebel Souls, Deserters we are called,
    Chose a gun, and through away the Sun,
    now these towns, they all know our names.
    6 gun sound is our claim to fame"

    "Bad Company" by Bad Company...

    Frank "They call me the Cruiser" Drackman

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  2. My dick IS ginormous AND I really AM in ten out of ten pain. The doc called it a priapism. What is "caverject" anyway?

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  3. I suggest the following procedure:

    The doctor places a hand-held voltage-resistance meter on the bed and tapes the leads to two places on the patien't arm. The meter is turned off. It is just for show.

    The doctor says to the patient: "I have a pain meter here, and I would like to ask you to report your level of pain.

    If you are correct, we will charge you $10 less on your copay. If you are wrong, we must charge you $10 more for further testing. Here is the reference chart. How much pain are you experiencing?"

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  4. dear mr garland,
    a capital suggestion, but alas, since ER patients either do not pay, or they have "insurance" this method would work only on very few. also, the word would get out pretty quick about your "unethical" testing method. chuck the lawyer would be all up in our asses before he could polish his Porsche. I think telling the patient that it's a crime to fraudulently seek narcotics and then telling them you were going to draw a "verititer" to confirm their pain level might be more effective, but, alas, food for chuck as well.
    best

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  5. Leave it to 911 to bring me out of the woods with a schlong survey...

    If I measure it from my ball-sack, my dong IS fucking huge. Just sayin'.

    If we consider a normal distribution with 1" equal to 1 standard deviation, and 6" as the mean, we can assume that about 1 in 1000 males have a 9" cock. This is quite impressive only if associated with appropriate girth (at least that's what the ladies say). Let's say girth needs to be 2sd above the mean to qualify as ginormous / fucking huge (G/FH) along with 3sd on length. For simplicity we will say this equals ~ 1/50 X 1/1000 = 1/50,000. I'm not even going to address surface area, density and curvature as these are minor considerations. So, according to this flawless statistical analysis, it is unlikely that a single true G/FH would have even taken the poll.

    People are fucking liars. QED.

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  6. To Etotheipi,

    But, the distribution of people reading this blog is probably not "normal". Probably, they have much bigger dongs and brains than average, and so we can't know if they are mostly liars.

    Length and girth may both result from extra copies of the Ginormous gene, so they would not be indpendently related, and the probability of Ginormous length and girth might be much more probable than 1 in 50,000.

    Only a detailed government census, house to house can fully resolve this issue. The money spent would stimulate the economy.

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  7. thinking about the amount of other people's money we could spend on this stimulates me to the point of a full on chub, and it's fucking huge.

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  8. Then, I suggest you use that G/FH to inflict a 10 on Chuck.

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  9. HaHaHaHa Chuck skee-dadled away like the French Army at Dien Bien Phu...

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  10. speaking of the French, and to answer your suggestion CJ... I think chuck would dig that too much... in fact, just like a sheep on the edge of a cliff, he would back up pretty hard.

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  11. Dr. Geoffrey Bove7:30 PM, August 12, 2010

    I LOVE this thread! However, as a professional pain scientist and clinician, I must say that if there is a problem in the clinic with the administration of the VAS, it must be with the quality of the physician.

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  12. good one doc. you're right, i thought a VAS had to do with a surgical procedure. frank?

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  13. dear anon,
    why is it that dudes can be ridiculed for having tiny schlongs, but women are not ridiculed for having vagina's that could accomodate the statue of liberty?

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  14. The Bove comment reminds me of the Internal Medicine attendings (covered in another thread) who said "There are no poor historians, only poor history takers".

    Come to the ER (not a clinic) some day and try to coax any of my 10/10 pain patients with Cheeto dust on their lips, talking on their cell phones, and watching Springer to give a more believable pain score.

    It remains a worthless number as an "across the board vital sign". No matter the "quality" of the physician.

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  15. Possibly simultaneous cheetos, conversations, and Springer could be interpreted as self-distraction in response to extreme pain. Where is the sympathy?

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  16. i do feel for you andrew... is your pain being adequately treated? no? here's some toradol... oh, you are allergic? okay, here's some motrin. allergic to that too? and to tylenol? what is that? the only tHing that works is that one with a 'd'? hmm. there's a certain 'dr bove' in town, he's a professional pain scientist and clinician, i'm going to ask him to come in and assess your pain level on the VAS and we'll get you squared away STAT! PAGING DR BOVE... DR BOVE!!! he's not answering. and obtw, WHAT THE FUCK IS A PROFESSIONAL PAIN SCIENTIST AND CLINICIAN AND HOW DO YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR WITHOUT VOMITING? frank?

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  17. To 911DOC,

    I intended my last post about Cheetos (Where is the sympathy?) to be sarcastic, but I didn't count on how ridiculous the real situation is.

    On the other hand, if Cheetos really do alter pain, then there could be the Cheetos test. Put a large bowl of Cheetos in front of the patient. Measure the amount eaten in 10 minutes. Calibrate to the pain chart. (smile)

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  18. the cheetos pain scale... prima facie, more accurate than the current method.

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  19. The other night a triage nurse asked our patient where the pain was on a scale of 1-10. "Seventy-Five" was his answer. Funny thing was that minutes before he had told my partner that the pain "Wasn't that bad".

    I think the pain scale is particularly useless, but that's just me.

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  20. dear TOTWYTTR,
    no, it's not just you... it is useless.

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  21. speaking of the French, and to answer your suggestion CJ... I think chuck would dig that too much... in fact, just like a sheep on the edge of a cliff, he would back up pretty hard.

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