GETTING TESTED: A Limerick-Based Handbook on MEDICAL TESTING

coaster from a medical school reunion

SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio and Dr. GH, March 2020.  

Those readers with a medical bent might want to click to review earlier poetic collections by our intrepid pair of writers, as tabulated (with links) at the end of this post:

Hello! I'm your social distancing trainer!

 

CURRENT CONTENTS:
Medical tests (introduction)

True positive rate (sensitivity)

False positive rate

Screening

Back to normal

Controlled trials 

A worm with a germ

Imaginary clinical trial: "A gram of prevention" (a brief saga)

 

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EPILOGUE: With respect to false-positive testing for COVID-19, this anecdote may be enlightening ... 

 Authors' Note: The conclusion of this imaginary placebo-controlled trial of magic in the prevention and treatment of ILLS can be stated as follows:

Parenteral administration of a low dose (1 gram) was found uniformly effective in prevention. For oral treatment of later established cases, the dosage requirement was found to be higher by a factor of 16 times (95% confidence interval: 9 — 25).

The above conclusion could, with inherent limitations of proportionality, be converted back to older units (as spoofed on the OEDILF site by Giri): "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

(Note that the five verses of this "brief saga" can be found in more easily legible format on our working blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense"; click HERE.) 

Here's a LIST OF LINKS to collections of intriguing poems (over 160 of these!) on medical/dental topics that can now be found on various posts. 

A NOTE FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS:

If you want to resume daily titillations on our blog 'Daily Illustrated Nonsense', click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 through 2023. (There are now over 900 daily entries on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.)