Initially, it had all seemed so easy and straightforward. Working in a large children's hospital, I thought it would be useful to survey paediatric nurses and doctors about their knowledge of popular children's television characters. Knowing one's Tweenies from one's Fimbles always helps in communicating with a wary preschool child, and it would be interesting to find out just how much paediatric healthcare professionals knew about these things. Filling out a little questionnaire would be a bit of fun for everyone involved. But fun and research don't always make easy friends, as I was soon to learn.
One of my colleagues wisely suggested that it would make sense to survey a few young hospitalised children as a control group. This sounded like good advice, but that's when the trouble started. In order to be able to ask a few children whether they recognised Tinky Winky or Jake, I was told I had to apply for approval from the ethics committee. In order to obtain this approval, I had to seek statistical advice. The statistician asked me to do a pilot study first to establish how many children would be needed for my project. Having done so, I finally filled out the rather lengthy ethical approval application form. After all this, I was told today that the form has changed as from this month to a new nationwide form.
If you never read this study written up in any journal don't be surprised. Mind you, I will add it to my portfolio as an extremely interesting learning experience in politically correct research.