than any code brown. What the heck are they eating?
• • •
So, I hit a surgeon in the nose. With his phone. I swear it was an acci-
dent. He's a surgeon I happen to like. He was on call. You know, his
phone is burning up from all these people calling for one thing or
another and I'm expected to answer it. On the 4th call in 15 minutes, I
can't understand a thing this woman is saying and between me asking
her to repeat herself over and over and him getting irritated, I'm stuck
being a relay station. I finally just stretch my arm out so he can talk to
her himself and BAM! the phone jumps out there past my hand, hit-
ting his glasses and driving them right into nose. I said I was sorry-
sorry-sorry 20 times and prayed I didn't draw blood. My history is hit-
ting surgeons in the head with lights. Looks like I'm adding "phone to
the nose" to my repertoire of assault and battery.
• • •
A nurse was struggling to steer an uncooperative stretcher down a
hallway crowded with coworkers staring at a monitor of cases. Why
do we do that? Like staring at them is going to make them go away.
Anyway, a coworker backs up into the path of the oncoming stretcher.
"Whoa," the stretcher-pusher says, "that's a good way to lose a toe
there." You should have seen the look on her face when she realized
that the patient on the stretcher was there for a toe amputation.
• • •
When left alone to their ADHD ways, young surgeons are all over the
place like a Jack Russell terrier. Pushing all kinds of buttons on instru-
ments and equipment, and then looking to the scrub or circulator to
fix the screwup. I have to control myself from rolling up their H & P
and whomping them on the nose. (I seem to be on a nose kick.)
• • •
Behind Closed Doors
BCD
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