At an academic dinner recently two professors remarked that their grown up children had advised them to get a life. This advice had been given in all seriousness and, in one case, had been reinforced by a postcard saying, “WORK is for people who don't know how to party.” “It's true,” the professor added sadly, “I really don't.”
Such ignorance is new. Older professors always used the word “fun” in their retirement speeches, usually when referring to the second world war or academic life in the 1960s. Sooner or later medical schools will realise that those bon viveurs were actually more productive than their workaholic successors.
When this happens, partying will come back into fashion. Indeed, it will become compulsory. We shall have a national RAE (Revelry Assessment Exercise) involving detailed questionnaires on party quality and quantity. We shall agonise about how many parties to declare.
We shall need published guidelines. At present there is no basis for evidence based partying. What follows is a draft for consultation.
The invitation: Email is boring. Have your invitation sung by a stripping lab technician or encoded on a genetic fingerprint.
The venue: Be original. Choose somewhere that will be stimulatingly unfamiliar to academics—the outpatient clinic, for example. Inexpensive decorations can be made from bunches of used airline tickets.
Games: Academics love to see themselves as Machiavellian plotters. Get things going with a box of rubber daggers. Everyone has to stab everyone else in the back and when stabbed has to writhe in agony on the floor. (Keep an eye on the stilettos to make sure that nobody slips in a real one.)
The food: Bring back memories of your days as a junior. Install a hospital vending machine with sinister looking pasties. And why not retune the microwave to sound like a mobile phone?
The music: Hip disc jockeys with strange names and huge loudspeakers can be easily hired. Most are medical students but a few are ear, nose, and throat surgeons drumming up trade.
The drugs: Having trouble recruiting volunteers for your latest phase III trial? Make sure your doormen have a good supply of consent forms.
Remember, these are only guidelines. Enjoy.