Shock! Scandal! Waiting room People pilfered

Researchers are a step closer to in solving one of the great medical mysteries: Why are the magazines in doctors' waiting rooms so old?

It appears that someone, or something, removes new issues – especially new issues containing celebrity photos and gossip – from well-stocked waiting areas, doctors from New Zealand report Thursday in the medical journal BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal).

The study is in the journal's satirical Christmas issue – an annual exercise in applying scientific scrutiny to somewhat silly subjects. Other studies in the issue look at whether liberal "armchair socialists" really sit more than political conservatives do (they do not) and which songs surgeons should play in the operating room (not Another One Bites the Dust).

The magazine study addresses a common patient complaint, says lead author Bruce Arroll, a general practitioner and a professor at the University of Auckland.

Patients may believe doctors intentionally supply old magazines. One humorist has suggested they do it to keep patients from reading about new medical techniques, the study notes.

While Arroll and his colleagues could not rule out that possibility, they set out to see what would happen when 87 magazines, some up to a year old, were put out for patients at their office.

The result: After a month, 41 magazines were gone. New magazines went missing at a rate of 60% vs. 29% for those more than 2 months old – leaving an oversupply of old magazines. An even more robust finding: Gossipy magazines – those with lots of celebrity cover photos – were 14 times more likely to disappear than non-gossipy magazines. No issues of Time or The Economist, of any age, went missing; 26 of 27 gossipy magazines did.

The authors do not name the gossipy magazines. They do suggest doctors stock up on Time and The Economist as a cost-saving measure.

The authors also do not say how the magazines disappeared, though they note that staff members were prohibited from taking them. "One option is patients," Arroll conceded in an e-mail.

"We think more research is needed, as we need more funding."

An obvious question: Would these findings hold up in the United States? They probably would, says Yul Ejnes, an internist in Cranston, R.I. That does not mean patients are thieves, he says. Some, he says, ask to take particularly engrossing magazines they bring to his exam room.

And some, he says, do complain about the choices in the waiting room.

But Ejnes adds: "We offer free Wi-Fi, so a lot of times they are looking at their phones or tablets" – suggesting the missing magazine problem may soon become a thing of the past.