{"id":1317,"date":"2016-06-21T21:12:12","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T20:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/adc\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2016-06-10T15:34:59","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T14:34:59","slug":"strawberry-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/adc\/2016\/06\/21\/strawberry-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Strawberry stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"strawberry\"My mum insists that we, at home, always cut off the green bit & splice the strawberry in case it had a slug in it.<\/p>\n

For Ian Wacogne<\/a> it’s sitting with his back against a radiator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Well, in my case it’s so that you can’t eat a slug … that’s managed to get into the strawberry without having left a hole \/ magic taped it together afterward .. garbage, yup?<\/p>\n

I asked my mum about it. She said that my grandma had told her she had eaten a slug in a strawberry when she was little, but that no, she didn’t remember eating the slug, and actually, on recollection, it was that she had\u00a0nearly<\/em> eaten a slug in a strawberry …<\/p>\n

Such ‘strawberry stories’ are prevalent and problematic. They exist in clinical medicine, research and publishing. Some we’ve heard recently:<\/p>\n

“You can’t publish fetal or animal papers in ADC F&N” … You can<\/a><\/p>\n

“You need NHS Ethics to involve patients in developing research studies & protocols” … You don’t<\/a><\/p>\n

“Multi-disciplinary research is never worth the effort” … Nope<\/a><\/p>\n

Identifying these strawberry stories, and overcoming them should probably be one of the tasks we take on every day. I wish I could point you at high quality evidence of how to do it, but sadly, I can’t.<\/p>\n