Monday with Mary's voice mail

"Hi, I'm looking for a neurologist who treats symptoms caused by electromagnetic force fields, such as those given off by cell phones, WiFi transmitters, hearing aids, and computers. These things are prevalent in our society, and are making me and my friends all sick. We need someone who can treat us for brain and nerve damage from their radiation, and who could also help us file a mass lawsuit against all cell phone, computer, and hearing aid users. Thank you."

We're talking serious Haldol. And 4-point leathers

Gee, why do I suspect drugs were involved?

Thank you, Tanya!

More hairs leap off

Dr. Grumpy: "Hi, Mike, it's Ibee."

Dr. Brilliant: "Yes, what can I do for you?"

Dr. Grumpy: "I sent Mr. Jones to you - you saw him earlier today - for a second opinion on his weird muscle disease. What did you think?"

Dr. Brilliant: "I'd like to know what his EMG showed."

Dr. Grumpy: "Well..."

Dr. Brilliant: "You know, I don't mind doing second opinions. But it's not helpful when you don't send all the information with the patient."

Dr. Grumpy: "Because..."

Dr. Brilliant: "I cannot help the patient without the test results. Could you have your staff send the EMG to me?

Dr. Grumpy: "YOU DID THE EMG YOURSELF! 2 weeks ago! I sent him to you for the test!" 

(long pause)

Dr. Brilliant: "Let me get back to you."

Irony

Yesterday at a birthday party I was sitting on a park bench near 2 young mothers at a picnic table. Both were covered with tattoos. And I overheard this:

Mom 1: "Did you hear Jessica got breast implants?"

Mom 2: "No! That's just wrong. Why would anyone do something like that to change their body?"

Saturday

Due to a bunch of kid activities today, I'm just posting this for your entertainment.

 

Mary's Desk

Mary: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Mary."

Ms. Sleaze: "Yes, I need to speak to Dr. Grumpy immediately."

Mary: "Who is this?"

Ms. Sleaze: "You have some nerve to ask me that! This is Ima Sleaze, and I'm calling him on a personal matter about him being a homeowner."

Mary: "Okay, I can give him a message, but he's with a patient. If this is a sales call I can tell you he won't return it."

Ms. Sleaze: "THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MATTER FOR ALL HOMEOWNERS! You can tell him that Suzy Patient referred me to him. I know he'll get on the phone right now."

Mary: "I'm not going to interrupt him with a patient. If you want to leave me your phone number, I'll give him the message."

Ms. Sleaze: "He'll fire you for not putting me through, and you'll have only yourself to blame."

(click)

Thursday evening rambling

Sitting here, listening to Donna Summer on iTunes.

Disco was, for the most part, not one of music's greatest genres.

But Donna Summer was something special. I was 12 years old (what's called a "tween" today) when she hit the big time.

She had an incredible voice, and used it with style. Songs that no one else could carry she could. She put energy into the music. Cover versions just don't do them justice the way her pipes did. Even while "MacArthur Park" (which she didn't write- she did a cover of an older song) had some, uh, unusual lyrics, she still made them come alive in a way that blew the original away.

"Hot Stuff" was the first 45 rpm single I remember buying. I took it home and listened to it repeatedly. Certainly not philosophical stuff, but at an age when you were first trying to figure out girls, the music was PERFECT to just get up and boogie at the 7th & 8th grade dance (6:30 to 9:30, 1st Friday of each month, in the school cafeteria). It gave you courage to ask a girl to dance, and hope she didn't notice your braces.

On a side note, the first time I ever danced with a girl was when SHE asked me. Her name was Amy, and I was sitting on a table, trying to figure the whole thing out. She came out of nowhere, grabbed my hands, and pulled me out on the floor. I guess she didn't ask me at all, just said "Come on!" and pulled my arms out of their sockets.

The only disco on my iTunes has always been Donna Summer's greatest hits. Last year, when my wife gave me an LP/cassette-to-digital converter, I dug out the ancient "Hot Stuff" single and digitalized it.

Yeah, the CD music version is clearer, but hearing my original vinyl 45 again, with the scratchy needle sound, means more to me. It's the version that's still embedded deep in my brain, taking me back to the school dance.

Thank you, Donna.

Wednesday night, 11:23 p.m.

Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a page."

Mrs. Dword: "Yeah, I saw you a year or so ago for my pain issues, and they're pretty bad now. I'm in Farfaraway Hospital ER."

Dr. Grumpy: "Okay, I'll let the doctor there handle it. I don't have privileges there."

Mrs. Dword: "I want you to tell them to give me another ER doctor. This one isn't giving me any of the good pain medicines I keep asking for."

Dr. Grumpy: "Good night."

Speeding. Drunk Driving. Racing through a construction zone.

But hey, it's for a good cause!


Thank you, Lee!

Of course, morons are everywhere.

 

Huh?

Dr. Grumpy: "Have a seat and let me look at your chart... So I saw you last week and started you on Mariokart. I'm surprised to see you back in less than a week. Was there a problem?"

Mrs. Copay: "No, I haven't even started it yet. But at the appointment you said I could take it in the morning or at night, and I said I'd like to take it at night. I've been thinking about it, and I'd rather take it in the morning. Is that still okay?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Yes... Was that all?"

Mrs. Copay: "That was it. Thank you!" (leaves office)

Great patient moments

Dr. Grumpy: "Pete, I want to see you back in 3 months."

Pete: "You're pretty optimistic. I'm 92."

Pay-up!

What a way to go!

Thank you, Jackie!

Holy interpreter, Batman!

Local hospital just hired a Somali interpreter, to help with Somali refugees settling in Grumpyville.

He's a nice guy, fluent in both English and Somali (Spanish and French, too), and remarkably helpful.

But, there is one issue with him.

His name (pronounced and spelled as you'd expect) is...

God.

Yup. God.

So when I'm on call, I get to say & hear things I never thought I would:

"Can someone get God on the phone?"

"Where can I find God? MRI?"

"Thank God! God is here!"

"Did you put God on hold?"

"I think God went to lunch."

"Is God out sick today?"

"If God calls back, patch him through to my cell phone."

"If anyone sees God, send him to room 7."

And my favorite: "God's in the pharmacy, talking to Jesus."

Weekend reruns

Let's take the Way-Back machine to the early-90's.

Dr. Grumpy is the medicine intern, on-call for Thanksgiving, at a large VA hospital (a veterans hospital for my non-U.S. readers, with consequently a primarily cantankerous elderly male population).

A peculiar thing about VA hospitals (at least back then, I haven't worked at one for 18 years) is that patients could sign out at the nurse's desk, and come back later (allegedly they were in the hospital because they were sick, but you need to work at one to understand this point). So the sheet was always full of notations that patients had signed out to go to McDonald's, or to buy cigarettes, or to smoke, or to visit friends at the homeless shelter, or to hold up a liquor store, or whatever.

Some bright businessman had opened a stripper club across the street from the hospital, I think it was called The Jaguar Room. So on Thanksgiving the VA ward I was covering was empty, as most of the patients had signed out to walk, wheel, or crawl over to The Jaguar Room for some female comfort and booze.

I was asleep in the intern's room when the calls began coming in. All of them from the bartender at The Jaguar Room. Questions about was it safe for my patients to be smoking through their tracheostomy tubes? Were the cardiac telemetry packs still transmitting from across the street? Was there a place at the VA where the patients could get more $1 bills, because they'd used them all up on the strippers?

And my favorite:

Bartender: "Can I give Mr. Veteran another beer?"

Intern Grumpy: "Um, what's the problem?"

Bartender: "He has one of those foley bags things, with the tube going up his dick. The bag is, like, REALLY full, and I'm afraid if I give him another beer it'll pop and send piss everywhere."

Intern Grumpy: "Send him back to the hospital."

Bartender: "Well, that's bad for business."

Intern Grumpy: "So is showering your clientele with piss."

Mr. Veteran was wheeled back over to the VA immediately, by a topless stripper no less, who waited while his bag was emptied and then pushed him back to the bar.