Monday, January 4, 2010

Surgeon's lounge

There was always a certain amount of ribald humor in the lounge, and in the change room in particular, that I am hesitant to write about. This story is relatively safe. If you do a job that has a certain amount of tension and stress, humor is a useful relief valve and probably helps you to stay on your feet in good order. As more and more women have entered the surgical field there has been some modification of the worst of it. Where sexes are separated in change rooms,even with so-called adults, there are fewer restraints on either sex. Dr MM was an old time, busy, general surgeon in the 60's when I first started. He was famous for his surgical skills but even more famous for his long penis. It was a source of admiration and considerable conjecture as to it's measurement. Some, of a more envious nature, postulated that it was partially an optical illusion, since he had short femora. When he operated at that time he wore a very identifiable pair of white surgical rubber boots. They were unmistakeable. Someone, no one knows who, put his boots neatly together in front of one of the toilets and behind the swinging door. If , in the process of changing for a case, two colleagues were to gossip about another, it was customary to look under the floor space of the swinging door to ensure privacy and avoid offending. Dr. MM's boots sat neatly in front of the toilet for several hours, casually checked by successive surgeons 'til one, who had observed the boots earlier, panicked and hollered out to call the arrest team, before he swung the door open to find nothing but a pair of empty boots. The cardiac arrest team mobilized for naught! It added to the legend of Dr. MM who had been long gone from the operating room !

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