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Introduction For many Danes, Christmas is a traditional celebration linked with food, and Christmas dinner might be the most important dinner of the year. Whether the correct meal includes roast pork or roast duck is a deeply personal question. Methods We asked all patients who were admitted to the surgical gastrointestinal emergency clinics of the Capital Region in Denmark on Christmas Eve and Christmas Night what they have had for Christmas dinner. Results A total of 30 patients presented to the hospital, and 17 of these were successfully included. 71% had eaten roast duck and 65% had eaten roast pork. This result was non-significant compared with the general Danish population tested with chi-square (p = 0.955). Conclusion We found no significance in the ingestion of roast duck and roast pork between patients at surgical gastrointestinal emergency clinics and the Danish background population. Funding none. Trial registration none., (Published under Open Access CC-BY-NC-BD 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.)

Introduction: Inter-hospital variation in the management of small bowel obstruction (SBO) has been described in other countries, but the extent to which similar variations exist in Denmark remains unknown. This study aimed to compare the management of SBO between hospitals in Denmark and identify potential areas for improvement METHODS. This was a multicentre prospective study performed at six emergency hospitals. Patients aged ≥ 18 years with a diagnosis of SBO were eligible for inclusion. The primary study endpoints were the proportion of patients undergoing operative versus non-operative management, laparoscopic surgery versus open surgery and the success rate of non-operative management., Results: A total of 316 patients were included. No differences were noted in diagnostic pathways or operative versus non-operative management. However, variations were noted in compliance with peri-operative care bundles, ranging from 63.2% to 95.8%. The surgical approach also varied, with the use of laparoscopic surgery ranging from 20.7% to 71.0% (p less-than 0.001). Variations were also noted in duration of surgery (63-124 minutes, p less-than 0.001), time to re-introduction of normal diet and length of hospital stay (3-8.5 days, p less-than 0.001). No differences were observed in 30-day or 90-day mortality rates., Conclusion: The management of SBO in Denmark is relatively standardised. Future efforts should focus on improving adherence to multidisciplinary peri-operative protocols, optimising patient selection for laparoscopic surgery and standardising nutritional therapy., Funding: None., Trial Registration: NCT04750811., (Articles published in the DMJ are “open access”. This means that the articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.)