ndab Ah Yes, Medical School: February 2006

Monday, February 20, 2006

Bring It On

Laaaaadies and gentlemen, boys and girls, single attractive female Jews from all around the world, welcome to the one, the only, the greatest fight that the world will ever see. To my left, in this corner, standing five feet, two inches tall, weighing in at a reported one hundred and twenty pounds, the dominating, the powerful, the grotesquely disfigured Nurse Theresa!!! To my right, in that corner, towering six feet one inch into the atmosphere, weighing in at a…umm…soft but still muscular one hundred and eighty five pounds, the attractive, the moderately desperate, the boxer who would like the nursing community to know that despite his feelings towards this specific nurse and the fight that is to follow, he hopes that in the future, when he has garnered a longer white coat and thus more respect, the nursing community as a whole will consider dating him, the one, the ooooooonly, the...uhh...Fake Doctor!!! Without further ado, let the fight begin!

Ding Ding Ding!


Round 1

Nurse Theresa, toned and in shape, is clearly looking to pick a fight. The Fake Doctor, on the other hand, doesn't seem to know where he is right now, he seems disoriented, confused, unsure of what the hell is going on. Granted, this fight has begun at 6:30 AM, and we're not entirely sure he even has a clue he was supposed to be in a fight in the first place, but that's no reason we can't enjoy a good old fashioned ass whipping. The Fake Doctor makes the first move...by reaching for a patient's chart, his patient's chart, and...umm...well...doing what he's supposed to be doing - checking if any orders had been written the night before. Sorry folks, wish it was something more exciting. Nurse Theresa, watching the proceedings at hand and not impressed by the lack of masculinity displayed by the Fake Doctor, starts advancing, gliding closer and closer, all unbeknownst to the plucky young fighter. Then, without warning, Nurse Theresa raises her mighty claws and...
"Excuse me, but just who the hell are you and what are you doing with my patient's chart?!?"
"Uhh..."
"Give me that!"
Nurse Theresa violently grabs the chart out of the lowly medical student's hands.
"Now, who do you think you are?"
"I'm...umm...uhh...the med student taking care of this patient."
"Ya right you are, get out of my way!"

Nurse Theresa: 1 The Fake Doctor: 0


Round 2

Beaming with confidence, Nurse Theresa, circles around the ring, raising her fists in the air. The Fake Doctor, on the other hand, is still stunned from the sucker punch he just received and is staggering about, wobbling to and fro. Now surrounded by his entire team of superiors, the Fake Doctor tries to hold back his embarrassment and frustration over the previous low blow and get on with his work. His resident instructs him to write some antibiotic orders for his patient, so the Fake Doctor glides around the ring to grab the chart before Nurse Theresa can find him. He writes up some orders, gets the appropriate signatures, hands the chart to the clerk, and returns to the doctors meeting room where his team has been waiting. Just as the Fake Doctor sits down, Nurse Theresa makes her second move of the fight. She barges in, drawing all of the Fake Doctor's superiors' attention, slams the chart loudly on the table, opens up the chart to the orders page, and throws a few strong punches to the abdomen and/or balls:
"Did you write these orders?!"
"Uhh...ya."
"Have you ever even seen the patient? Do you have any idea who this is?! I mean how you could write orders for someone to take oral pills when they're in his condition?"
"Umm...uhhh."
The Fake Doctor's superiors all look at him, clearly disappointed.

Nurse Theresa: 2 The Fake Doctor: 0


Round 3

Still experiencing some severe ringing in his ears from the pounding he has received all morning, the Fake Doctor, beaten and bloodied, tries to find something to cling to, some lingering shred of dignity to grab hold of and claw his way back into this fight that was thrust upon him for no obvious reason. Nurse Theresa, now floating back and forth, bursting with energy, knows victory is within reach. She can taste it, much like she can taste the marinara she had for lunch, as remnants are still clinging to the moustache lining her upper lip. Meanwhile, the resident physician enters the ring and announces to the Fake Doctor that he is needed to perform an arterial blood gas (ABG) on a patient, a procedure that involves blindly sticking a needle into the man’s wrist and hopefully hitting an artery to get a blood sample. He instructs Nurse Theresa to get a kit for the Fake Doctor, so she takes one look at the Fake Doctor before shouting, rather loudly, “Hmm…he’s going to do it? I better get a few kits because he’s going to screw this up.”

Nurse Theresa: 3 The Fa-

Wait…wait just one second, ladies and gentlemen. As if rising from the dead, the Fake Doctor slowly crawls up from the humiliation thrust upon him, grabs the needle with his bloody, swollen fist, and thrusts it in the wrist of a poor unsuspecting patient. The audience gasps. The resident cringes. Nurse Theresa starts laughing, victorious in all her evi-…wait just a minute, everyone. Out from the small needle…I think I see it…there is the tiniest bit of…blood! He hit the artery! He hit the artery! On the first try! Nurse Theresa is in shock! Can you believe what you are seeing?!?

Nurse Theresa: 2 The Fake Doctor: 1


Round 4

As this stunning battle of the titans resumes, we are shocked that the Fake Doctor, totally unprepared early on, has fought his way back, stunning Nurse Theresa with a powerful blow in the last round. The Fake Doctor, relishing in that striking blow, has decided to take a break and is seen sitting by the computers. Nurse Theresa, still fuming at her sudden misfortune, rushes into the computer area and frantically informs the Fake Doctor that the results from the ABG show an incredibly high oxygen level. Before the Fake Doctor can explain why and save the Nurse from her ultimate downfall, she brushes him off with a “You wouldn’t know anything anyways!” and rushes to the senior resident.

His response?

“Of course it’s high. The patient is on 4 liters of oxygen. Do you even know who this patient is?!?”

Stricken by this fatal blow, only moments after suffering the previous embarrassment and perhaps weighed down by the guilt of inexplicably picking on a hapless, if ridiculously handsome young medical student for no obvious reason, Nurse Theresa starts wobbling, starts fading. And…she’s down for the count! Looks like she’s not getting up, folks!!! That’s it! It’s official!

In a horrible educational year of the improbable, the impossible has happened!*

Winner: The Fake Doctor, by TKO



*Sorry, I’ve always wanted to use that line in some way, shape, or form. By the way, my birthday is this Wednesday, so do this lonely fake doc a favor and please send all those hot naked pictures you’ve been saving up to thefakedoctor@gmail.com. Thanks a bunch.

posted by Admin at 9:43 PM 54 comments

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Darwin, Reincarnated

Out of the bubbling protoplasm that first yielded that vast, horrific taxonomic family (c'mon everyone...remember King Philip Came Over For Good Sex? Finally something I learned in high school that doesn't involve cursing in Farsi is paying off.) known as as Studentis Medicalannoythefuckus has arisen a new family, with a new set of genuses and specieseses under its proverbial tree. Yes, it has only taken me 6 months of intensive patient care to have already completed a preliminary survey of the vast array of species in the Patientannoythefuckus, and I can say without any hesitancy, fear, or regret that this family of creatures is undoubtedly more frightful, more terrifying, and more odiferous than anything previously known to my eyes, ears, nose, or probing finger. With that warning in mind, and with the caveat that I’m writing this the morning after downing 14 sake bombs meaning I cannot take any responsibility for incoherencies in this post, I invite you to take a tour through this symbolic zoo of creatures, and perhaps recognize some of your family members, friends, distant lovers, or even yourself in one of these species…


Fetor Assmaticus - Perhaps you have heard of Fetor Hepaticus, that distinct aroma emanated by the most chronic of liver failure patients. It tingles the senses, it frightens the mind, it challenges ones utmost abilities to suppress the frozen burrito you had for dinner last night. Now imagine taking a patient with that smell as a baseline, and then dumping a steaming pile of dog shit laced with yesterday's garbage, the urine you made after chowing down on all that asparagus, and a couple of rotting corpses, and you'll come close to experiencing the smell emanating from this species of patient. Overpopulating hospitals across the country and around the world, this species is known for the lowest standards in personal hygiene and the highest standards in personal lack of self-respect.

Entitlus Maximus - That noise you hear about every five to ten minutes is likely a loud shriek of complaint bursting out of the large mouths of these patients, who make up for their nonspecific and relatively benign conditions with enough whining about their care to make even the most generous of doctors and nurses want to slit their throats. This species is known for complaining about some of the more fundamental things in life, such as why the nurse won’t check on them every fifteen minutes or why the doctors actually change their management plan when they get new information about the disease. While this species has a predilection for being among the wealthier patients, they are also sometimes found in the essentially free county hospital system. Which of course makes this lowly medical student confused, because he is not only, as a student, paying a substantial amount of tuition money to pretend to be this asshole patient’s doctor, as a taxpayer, he is also paying a substantial amount of money to…be…umm…this asshole patient’s doctor. Excuse me while I throw up.

Buyus Aclueii – Beware this species, as its survival in spite of sheer idiocy of a magnitude not seen since, umm, I downed 14 sake bombs last night suggests a deep-rooted underlying cunning necessary for existence. Huh? Anyways, this species is known for showing up in clinic, any clinic, and then not having the slightest clue why they are there. ‘Sir, this is colorectal clinic, what brings you here today? Oh, that piece of paper told you to come? What about the massive hemorrhoid protruding from your anus?’ ‘Ma’am, what medications are you on? All of those? You realize that half of those bottles are of same drug, right? And you take one pill from each bottle?’ The truly fascinating aspect of this species is how its members are so resilient that their complete ignorance regarding their own health does not stop them from showing up to all sorts of appointments still clinging to life.

Denilus Aintjustariver – Unlike B. Aclueii, this species of patient is very aware of his or her disease state, cognizant of it’s potential complications, and appreciative of any care he or she would receive…should this patient ever get over the denial of having the disease in the first place and actually make it to the hospital. For that is the only explanation this taxonomist can come up with to describe this species of patient, after witnessing members of this species arrive at the hospital with a ten pound tumor in the testicle or a frightening full-body rash that has been there for, oh, say six months. Which makes one wonder, was it when the tumor got to ten pounds that triggered off the alarm in your head that it might be a good idea to check it out? 9 pounds not quite big enough for you? Was it when that rash successfully covered your entire body that you decided you were sick, and not the day before when that one speckle of your big toe was rash free?

Denilus Aintjustariverbutdontgiveafuckus – This is actually a subspecies of Denilus Aintjustariver, a group noted for not only being in denial about having a serious medical condition and avoiding the doctor at all cost, but then doing the complete opposite of what the doctor recommends to cure the disease. A noted example is the heart failure patient who shows up to the ER with a barely functioning heart (all secondary to heavy alcohol and tobacco abuse – no, one night of sake bombing does not heart failure make…I think), gets resuscitated, and is then found smoking and drinking in the hospital lobby still wearing his hospital gown and still under out care. I mean seriously, people, when you see shit like that it’s hard not to just throw in the towel and become the Las Vegas stripper I…umm, I mean you…were meant to be. Perhaps I’ve said too much.

Sickus Maximus – This species is sick. Very sick. So sick that their survival pretty much consists of being sick, going to the hospital, and dying. This is tragic enough, but it is compounded by the fact that these tend to be the nicest, most decent, most heartfelt people you’ll ever meet, which makes the situation all the more heart-breaking. I have no idea why this happens, but for whatever reason these sickest patients are also the least deserving of their fate, if one could in actuality deserve a disese. I guess this part isn’t very funny, but it plays out pretty consistently in the hospital so I thought I’d put it in here.

Clearly, there are many more species to be described, patients to explore, and so on, but I thought I’d leave it at this for now, if nothing else than I can’t write anymore because I have this massive headache that won’t go away. Christ, 14 sake bombs? Terrible idea.

posted by Admin at 9:30 PM 45 comments