Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, July 1, 2009.

A retrospective case study from The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University titled:

The Effect of National Football League Games on Small Animal Emergency Room Caseload.

Really.

Four veterinarians all with board certification in multiple specialties. Huge numbers of hours spent reviewing case files, doing statistical analyses, writing, reviewing, and submitting their article to the leading veterinary journal in the country and it’s about effin’ FOOTBALL? Not even football in general, but the 2007 season for the New England Patriots (now granted, the Patriots apparently play at a stadium that is close to the Tufts University veterinary school, but still….) They even mentioned that the football season in question was “particularly exciting for the New England Patriots, as the New England Patriots completed the regular season undefeated, which is a rare event.”

Someone thought that putting the money forth to do this study was worthwhile. The authors apparently thought that the time it would take them to do this study was worthwhile.
And since their major conclusion was, and I quote,
“Findings of this study indicate that popular professional sporting events, particularly in geographic regions with a dedicated fan base, may affect the caseload of a veterinary emergency room and that staffing alterations may be warranted.”
it makes me wonder if the funding for the study was from the NFL.

The article does cite a study done in Great Britain about admissions to pediatric emergency rooms. Apparently on weekends that new Harry Potter books have been released there has been a significant decrease in admissions because all the kids are home reading Harry Potter instead of outdoors “participating in more potentially reckless activities.” Also the authors did cite a study done about the effect of the full moon on admissions to veterinary emergency rooms (full moons increase veterinary ER visits which we in the community have been noting for a LONG time). So I did get some useful information out of this article, but still…..

Yeesh. I’m glad I’m not required to actually read EVERY study that’s published in JAVMA.