An unexpected glimpse

David Dehaas

Our third annual survey of readers of Canadian Family Physician (CFP) was sent to all College members on our e-mail list at 2:00 pm (EDT) on June 24, 2010.

At 2:12.08 the first completed survey arrived. Not bad. Our first respondent had set an impressive time of 12 minutes, which included writing comments in 3 of the 4 comment sections. Of course, all responses are anonymous, so we have no way of letting Respondent Number 1 know that he or she was first in our survey and equally high in our estimation.

The time stamps on the surveys give us an odd and unexpected little glimpse into the lives of family physicians. We had 28 responses in the first half hour and 58 by 3:00 pm. Those physicians must have been sitting at their computers when our e-mail arrived, and they must have said, “Yes, filling out this survey for CFP is a good use of my time in the middle of a weekday afternoon.”

We hit 100 at 3:47 pm and many more came in through the evening—from physicians who believe in getting down to the task at hand. There were 389 responses by midnight. Then it slowed down a little, and “only” 19 arrived through the night. Still, every hour of the night was well represented—there were physicians sitting in front of computers filling out our survey at 2:00 am, and at 3:00 am, and at 4:00 am our time, when the early birds in the Maritimes started to log onto their computers and the rate of returns started to pick up again. The total reached 565 by the end of day 2, and 771 by day 3.

Then the returns started to slow down, as expected. But even 3 weeks later, they were still coming. Physicians catching up after vacation? Physicians on vacation using the time to catch up? The very busy only then getting to their 3-week-old e-mails?

In any case, we hit 999, in total, English and French, by the morning of July 19, when we started to compile the results. (The temptation to wait for just 1 more response was considerable, but the decision to cut off results at 7:30 am on the 19th had been made in advance and we stayed with it.)

The results—the reading patterns, the Internet usage, the sources of information and, above all, the more than 1000 comments, suggestions, ideas, and questions—are extremely helpful, and will serve in very real and practical ways to guide the journal.

What can I say to such a broad and generous response? On behalf of all of us at CFP, thank you. Thank you very much.