One of my consults this weekend was an unfortunate fellow in ICU who'd recently had heart surgery. For whatever reason they'd decided to leave his chest cavity open for a few days, in case they had to go back in urgently.
So I went in the room. As expected, the guy was sedated and intubated. I checked his pupils and reflexes, the usual neurology stuff.
Being curious, I couldn't help looking into his partially open chest cavity, where, under surgical-sterile plastic sheeting, I could see his heart beating.
A nurse in the room came over and offered me a Junior Mint.
Being on the socialist side of the pond I had to seek help from Wikipedia on this one - “ Junior Mints are featured heavily in the Seinfeld episode "The Junior Mint”, in which, while observing a surgical procedure, Jerry pushes Kramer’s hand away, causing a Junior Mint to fall into the patient. Later, the Junior Mint is implied to have cured the patient's infection”. That reminded me of the old story of cardiac surgeon who dropped a contact lens into the wound whilst operating.
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining. I had no idea why the nurse would have walked over and handed him a Junior Mint. I've seen some Seinfeld episodes, but obviously not this one.
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