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This song was apparently sung
after the annual dinner of the Australian and New Zealand
equivalent to the Society for Social Medicine. One would need
several ’pints’ on board to fit into Grainger's music. (Tune:
"English Country Garden," Grainger)
We are epidemiologists, and
what do we measure?
Age, Sex, Race and Social
Class
Mortality, morbidity at home,
work, and leisure
by sex, race and social class
What is Social Class, you
say?
How much school, or how much
pay -
or where you live, where you
work or where you play,
or what others say you are,
and what you are you will STAY
with your Age, Sex, Race and
Social Class.
We are epidemiologists, we
study populations
and their health-related
states and the prevalence.
We register and classify,
recount the health events
and we calculate their
incidence.
"X-bar," "s," "t," we
analyze, rates and risks we standardize,
over R-squared and
Chi-squared and "p" we agonize,
and we seriously consider
"alpha," "beta," sample size
and statistical results in
the light of common sense.
We are epidemiologists, we
come before commissions
to support each health
initiative throughout the commonwealth.
We write papers for
enquiries, and compile detailed submissions
to apply for project funds,
and to study Public Health -
Risk factors- fats and smoke
and son,
Case-controls are properly
done
prospective cohort studies,
any other way we can -
We are bold and we’re
determined to woman and a man
to improve the nation's
health, in the open or BY STEALTH.
We are epidemiologists, the
huge data-sets we get
in these modern times we
computerize.
Multivariate techniques are
the norms that we set
as we model our hypotheses,
and then analyze.
"Hardware first" - the cry is
clear,
then "Software,
user-friendly, please"
Mainframes and Networks and
Modems and PC’s -
but "Garbage in Garbage out"
is the phrase we all fear
as we struggle with
statistics, seeking HEALTH as the prize.
REPEAT FIRST
STANZA
****************************************************
IEA Anthem
(or "Epidemiology Together") tune: "An English Old Country
Garden," Granger
How many variables keep us in the job?
Age, Sex, Race and Social Class.
How do they try to break us down?
Age, Sex, Race and Social Class.
Multiple Regre -e –ssion
Chi- Square, correlation
P
less than .001-
Unbiased and uncontrolled, no deviation here
We will not be compounded or broken down.
How many ladders can we climb?
MB, MS, PhD
To what heights can be aspire?
Chairman, Dean, Vice Chancellor.
Academic masturbation,
intellectual flagellation
these are among the games we play –
Theories and hypotheses, and learned
papers we produce
All on Age, Sex, Race and
Social Class
The Mystery Deepens: NOTE:
We thought it was a little strange that these two songs were
so much alike. We wrote to several people involved with IEA
and with the Australasian Epidemiology Association to confirm
that it did exist, and no one had heard of the song! Here are
few excerpts from a letter return to us by one of our New
Zealand informants:
"... I can't find anyone who
knows of the song, or have signed it. However, I'm not sure if
anyone would admit to it if they had. They would
also seem to be a problem with recall bias and that anyone who
was drunk enough to sing the song would probably be too drunk
to remember doing so... my own feeling is that the AEA
probably stole (sorry, adapted) the song from the IEA. It is
unlikely that anyone over here would've written it, since it
contains complicated terms such as "alpha and beta". Actually,
I have attended the last two IEA meetings and I'm sure that we
didn't sing anything there either..."
***************************************************************************
I'm on a
Committee
(sung to the
tune of Suite Little Buttercup" in H.M.S. Pinafore)
Oh give me
your pity!
I'm on a
committee,
which means
that from morning to night
We attend and
amend,
And contend
and defend
Without a
conclusion in sight.
We confer and
concur,
We defer and
demur
And reiterate
all of our thoughts.
We revise the
agenda
With frequent
addenda
And consider
a load of reports
We compose
and propose,
We suppose
and oppose
And the
points of procedure are fun;
But though
various notions
Are brought
up as motions
There's
terribly little gets done.
We resolve
and absolve
But we never
dissolve,
Since it's
out of the question for us
To bring our
committee
To end like
this ditty
Which stops
with a period - thus.
-
Leslie Lipson
***********************************************************************
Got no time
for wild polemics
I'm hung up
on epidemics.
*************************************************************************
Death is all too familiar to the
epidemiologist who studies it primarily as an abstract
quantitative concept. Occasionally, death announces its
presence closer to home, when a friend, colleague, or family
member passes away. Just such an event - the death of Dr.
Ralph Patrick, a professor of epidemiology at UNC/Chapel Hill
- created the right combination of whatever it takes to put
together the following poem, published in The Pharos
1986; 49:43.
Lament for an Epidemiologist
We both wondered
just how science progresses
in the scheme of things
Occasional conversation
heaped with unbridled conjecture
and a few externa laced with
experience
I sat, barely listening
always questioning
offering hope without proof
and guesses against experience
He sat, always listening
answering problems with others
and those with their begotten
It's evolution, he'd say
(with a twinkle in his eye)
And now he's gone
but the flame is kindled,
‘tis the scheme of things.
Douglas Weed
**********************************************************************
Epi Haiku:
Natural causes out
of vogue
Smoke or Salt or
Sloth
Have grave
results.
-
Contributed by Dan Cherkin
*********************************************************************
Epi’s
Answers
Epi’s claim
To lasting fame
Will come with
Answers gained
Ethically
Not with Stealth
Answers for
Prevention, cure
And lasting Health
- B Ladene Larsen
********************************************************************
Epi Haiku:
p.i. slain by
sharp rebuke
death
certificate reads,
"Grants Funds
Denied."
Dan Cherkin
*******************************************************************
"Superior
doctors prevent the disease,
Mediocre
doctors treat the disease before evident,
Inferior
doctors treat the full-blown disease.“
– Huang Dee
Nai-Ching, (2600 BC, First Chinese Medical Text)
********************************************************************
Epi Haiku:
Love the,
prophylactically
means never
having to say
you are sorry
Dan Cherkin
******************************************************************
Old
Epidemiologists Never Die…
Old
Epidemiologists Never Die…
but
perpetuate the title
for tho they
do no longer shed
we study bout
the life they led
which keeps
the butter on our bread
and our
statistics vital
-
Cheri Rolnick
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