We had 21 submissions for the September caption contest that featured a cartoon showing two patients in a hospital with one looking very sick and the other looking quite healthy. Charts at the front of their beds show a downward trend for the healthier looking patient and an upward trend for the sicker looking patient.
The winning caption for the cartoon was “Charts not starting at 0 make doctors lose patience!” written by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. The judges chose this caption for it’s play on words and its ability to start a discussion on the importance of appropriate axis labels. Another caption that also noticed the lack of a scale on the charts read simply “Label your axes!” and was submitted by Kyle Falbo of the College of the Redwoods.
Two other honorable mentions noticed the disconnect between the charts and the condition of the patients: “Nurse, were these charts doctored?” by Larry Lesser, and “Looks like a bad case of Regression to the Mean” by an anonymous contributor. A final honorable mention went to Chantal Larose of Eastern Connecticut State University for her caption “On average, our patients show no improvement over time.”