Watch How Indomie Took Mother’s Day a Step Further

Sunday 6 March 2016, marked the celebration of mothers in Nigeria. The day was filled with memories for mothers and their children who took out time to celebrate their favorite heroines and icons. For most brands it was a time to key into the trend and join in the celebration.

One brand however stood out with their campaign to celebrate mums like no other. Indomie took mother’s day a step forward by adding great emotions with how they chose to celebrate Nigerian mothers.


The campaign Thanks Mum for Every Special Moment. In a very emotional video message, Indomie got children to share and send their mother’s day good will messages to their watching mothers behind the scene. Watch as these kids put smiles on the faces of their mothers by saying the best things about their mum, courtesy of Indomie #MumLikeNoOther.

In addition to sharing the mother’s day spirit, Indomie is taking bold steps with their mother’s day CSR initiatives. The CSR activities is currently on-going in 18 key cities in Nigeria, where they are visiting different maternity and orphanage homes bearing branded gifts from the brand.

Visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/indomieinstantnoodles/videos/1155408417816717/ , join the campaign and Indomie may just surprise your mum.

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An intraoperative leak test should not be done or should it

Here is an abstract recently published ahead of print in the American Journal of Surgery. Please read it because a one-question test follows.

Introduction: Staple line leak after sleeve gastrectomy (SG) is a rare but dreaded complication with a reported incidence of 0-8%. Many surgeons routinely test the staple line with an intraoperative leak test, but there is little evidence to validate this practice. In fact, there is a theoretical concern that the leak test may weaken the staple line and increase the risk of a postop leak.

Methods: Retrospective review of all SG performed over a 7-year period. Cases were grouped by whether an intraoperative leak test (IOLT) was performed, and compared for the incidence of postop staple line leaks. The ability of the IOLT for identifying a staple line defect and for predicting a postoperative leak was analyzed.

Results: 542 SG were performed between 2007-2014. 13 patients (2.4%) developed a postop staple line leak. The majority of patients (N=494, 91%) received an IOLT, including all 13 patients (100%) who developed a subsequent clinical leak. There were no (0%) positive IOLTs and no additional interventions were performed based on the IOLT. The IOLT sensitivity and positive predictive value were both 0%. There was a trend, although not significant, to increased leak rates when a routine IOLT was performed versus no routine IOLT (2.6% vs. 0%, p=0.6).

Conclusions: The performance of routine IOLT after sleeve gastrectomy provided no actionable information, and was negative in all patients who developed a postoperative leak. The routine use of an IOLT did not reduce the incidence of postop leak, and in fact was associated with a higher leak rate after SG.

Do you agree with the authors that the routine use of the IOLT was associated with a higher leak rate after sleeve gastrectomy?

I dont, and heres why.

As I tend to do whenever I criticize a paper, I begin with a confession that I have written a lot of marginal papers in my time. Its one of the reasons I maintain my anonymity.

A "trend" has no scientific validity. A comparison is either statistically significant or it is not. Many scientists and statisticians have rightfully criticized our blind faith in p values, but they remain a standard way of comparing research results. That discussion is for another time. Let’s face it—p values will be around for a long time.

The claim that there was a trend toward an increased leak rate with IOLT was based on a difference of 2.6% among 542 subjects. Even if one believed in trends, the p value of 0.6 clearly indicates that there is no difference between the two percentages. Many authors get away with stating that trends exist when p values are 0.051 or 0.06. Thats still debatable, but at least close to the magic p of < 0.05.

I was never a big fan of intraoperative leak testing and agree with the authors finding that postoperative leaks can occur when the IOLT was negative. As they mention in their discussion, leaks often present long after the date of the operation and may be caused by ischemia, cautery injury, or other factors not readily identifiable by an IOLT.

Because the authors didnt find a single leak by doing the IOLT in 494 cases, they suggest that an IOLT is not necessary. But what if they had found one leak and fixed it. Would that have changed their conclusion?

I wonder if everyone at their institution has stopped doing IOLTs.

PS: Don’t just read the abstract; read the whole paper.

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Basketball is still an awful sport to watch

From the current issue of Sports Illustrated:

So why do I care about this?

Four years ago, I said the same thing in a blog post called "Basketball is an awful sport. Heres why." If you dont want to read the whole thing, I will summarize.

Basketball is the only sport I can think of where a team can be rewarded for breaking the rules. Specifically, by deliberately fouling and opponents weaker free-throw shooters, a team that is losing can catch up when the weak free-throw shooter misses and the team that is losing gets the rebound.

All of the fouls and free throws plus the seemingly unlimited number of timeouts that each team has result in the last two minutes of the game taking 20 or more minutes.

To me, its unwatchable.

Pertinent to Van Gundys comments is that Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond, who will play in the All-Star game, set an NBA record by missing 23 free throws in a single game on January 20.

This was part of a deliberate strategy by the Houston Rockets who were losing the game by nine points at the start of the third quarter. Houstons K.J. McDaniels fouled Drummond five times within nine seconds and the team fouled Drummond on seven straight Piston possessions. During that stretch, Drummond made 5 of his 16 free-throw attempts.

It must have been quite an exciting couple of minutes of play.

The All-Star Drummond had to be taken out of the game in the fourth quarter so that Detroit could hold on and win the game.

Yahoo Sports reporter Eric Freeman said: "While its a little inexact to say that sending a player to the line over and over again isnt basketball given that the rules allow it, its downright enervating to watch and not an ideal product for a league that ultimately sells entertainment above all else. Intentional fouling is also increasingly common, with seemingly each team having at least one player who gets sent to the line in opportune moments."

He suggested that NBA commissioner Adam Silver is going to have to do something about the issue.

Heres what Ive done about it. For the last few years, I havent watched basketball.

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