The buzz

Mary: "Hi, this is Mary, from Dr. Grumpy's office. I'm calling to remind you about your 2:45 appointment tomorrow."

Mr. Apoidea: "I'm not sure I'll be able to make it. I'm being stalked by bees."

Mary: "Excuse me?"

Mr. Apoidea: "There are bees following me, whenever I leave my house. I've been stung a few times this week. You'd think I'd bathed in honey or something."

Mary: "Okay, so would..."

Mr. Apoidea: "I'm hiding in my basement now, and they haven't found me yet. I'm going to stay here for a few days to see if they leave, and will call you when I'm ready to come in."

(click)

Skool nerse time

This is Mrs. Grumpy,

Dear Kids,

There are a lot of innovative ways to cut class and/or get sent home, and I think it's commendable that you guys work together so well.

Sometimes even I get fooled.

Last Thursday, for example.

Getting a bunch of kids in with stomach aches isn't that unusual, especially since I can't test for them. But when a second crop began showing up with skin irritations and rashes on their hands, faces, and mouths... it certainly got my attention. I even called the state and poison control to see if there were reports coming from other schools along those lines (there weren't).

Until someone came in with bad eye pain, which I had to flush out with water... and they spilled the beans. Before that I really had no clue what you were all up to.

Apparently one of you cute tykes smuggled in several Carolina Reapers with your lunch. Some bravely tried to show off by eating them, while others just vigorously rubbed pieces on their skin to induce redness and swelling. And a few accidentally ended up getting it in their eyes, nasal tissues, and (in one horrifying case) rear end. ("It was an accident, Nurse Grumpy!" Uh-huh, sure.)

Fortunately, no students were permanently harmed in this debacle, though many parents were quite inconvenienced by me having to call them about what was going on. And the majority of them began laughing hysterically.

To recap:

1. Mrs. Decimal says you still have to make up the math test.

2. Your parents think you are idiots.

3. Scoville units are not to be taken lightly.

Have a nice day.

Why don't you just ask?

Seen in a hospital chart:

Random pictures

Okay, time to hit the mail bag for stuff you guys have sent in.


First is this Engrish sign:

Next up is this school job opening for, um, not sure:

Then there's a fortune cookie...

"Confucious say, when alone, use the self-service pumps."

Then there's this sign. "Lobster Happy Hour" apparently doesn't apply to the lobster:

Here's a vintage drug company promo piece. You'd think Viagra would have been a better choice:

Speaking of Viagra, here's a great pharmacy sign. Love the stick figure.

 

And, lastly, is this page from a telephone directory:

One of these things is not like the others

Source: Alaska Airlines

Thank you, Laurie!

Max and Min

A bit of background explanation for my non-medical readers is required.

In pharmacology, the points at which a drug reaches the highest and lowest concentrations in the body are called Cmax and Cmin, respectively.


Last week I was at a meeting where the speaker kept pointing to graphs and saying things like "we obtained Cmin from testing healthy volunteers," "Cmin samples were analyzed by Whatzefukk chromatography," and "Overall, we were surprised by the Cmin values that were obtained."

And through it all... She didn't seem to realize what Cmin sounded like phonetically.

Immature as I am, it was hard not to snicker.

My readers write

Dear Dr. Grumpy,

I teach psychology courses at a community college.

I was teaching Intro Psych one quarter, and we were at the neuroscience portion of the course. One student spent every class either snapping her gum, texting, or staring off vacantly with ear buds in.

On exam day students were required to list the 4 lobes of the cerebral cortex and to write just one function of each lobe.  It's an easy section of the test for most students. This one, however, could only come up with 1 lobe and its function.

Her answer:   "Ear lobe - hearing."


Thank you, J!

The front line

Me and Pissy's office building has been remodeling the public bathrooms on each floor. This involves closing one and making the other a unisex john for a few days, then switching them off, then moving to the next floor.

This week they got to our floor and taped up their little "Unisex Restroom" and "Under construction" signs while they tore out old tile and fixtures. Honestly, I don't understand this. As long as a public bathroom is reasonably clean, most people don't care about the tiles or paintings. This is a medical office building, not the Waldorf-Astoria. Besides, each one just has a toilet and a sink, and the door locks. They're freakin' identical.

Anyway. Cut to day 3 of our floor's construction project:


Guy walks in, stands at counter.

Mary: "Can I help you sir? Do you have an appointment?"

Guy: "What is wrong with you people?"

Mary: "Uh, is there a problem?"

Guy: "YES! I'm tired of people like you, trying to make me think men and women are the same!"

Mary: "What are you talking about? This is a doctor's office."

Guy: "Instead of having separate men's and women's restroom's, you liberal PC types are trying to cram unisex bathrooms down my throat. I'm sick of this trend."

Mary: "Okay, that's not even our bathroom out there. And the sign is just temporary, while they're remodeling them."

Guy: "Oh... "

Mary: "Do you have an appointment with Dr. Grumpy or Dr. Pissy?"

Guy: "No, I just need to use the bathroom."

Leaves

Seen in a chart

Thank you, B!

Monday humor

Advanced calculus

Mrs. Math: "How many kids do you have?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Three."

Mrs. Math: "Oh... I mean, that's more than two."

Dr. Grumpy: "Yeah."

Seen in a chart

Another fine example of the crap you see in today's worthless electronic charting systems:

Follies

Mary: "Can I get a copy of your insurance card?"

Mr. Card: "Sure... here you go."

Mary: "Um, you told me on the phone that you were with Medicare, but this insurance is Major Illness HMO."

Mr. Card: "Sorry, I must have been confused. Can you still see me?"

Mary: "We need a referral authorization from your internist."

Mr. Card: "They said they'd fax one. It's Dr. Wayoverthere. You didn't get it?"

Mary: "No, let me call them." (dials phone) "Hi, this is Mary, at Dr. Grumpy's. He's a neurologist on the west side? One of Dr. Wayoverthere's patients, Mr. Card, is here, and says you were going to fax a referral?"

Dr. Wayoverthere's staff: "He's lying. He's involved in a legal case, and trying to find a neurologist to say he has problems since he was hit by a kid on a tricycle. We've sent him to 2 neurologists on this side already, who say there's nothing wrong with him."

Mary: "Okay, thank you." (hangs up phone)

Mr. Card: "Is it coming now? Can you see me?"

Mary: "They said they didn't refer you here."

Mr. Card: "Maybe they didn't. I remember now, my attorney sent me. Can you get an authorization from him?"

Mary: "No, your insurance won't accept that. If you or your attorney wants to pay for the visit we can see you, but without an auth from Dr. Wayoverthere we can't see you under your insurance."

Mr. Card: "I'm not going to pay for this. I'm out of here. You guys are trying to pull a fast one on me."

WWMJD?

Last week I was reviewing a research protocol which included the Beck Depression Inventory.

While looking through the questions I came across this one, and all I could think of was "How would Mick Jagger answer this?"