This is my call weekend.
Call weekends–where you cover for a host of other physicians, so that the fortunate many may enjoy some time off at the expense of the unfortunate SOB on call–are akin to ritual self-flagellation: long days, longer nights, countless phone calls from emergency rooms and ailing patients, most of whom you know nothing about beyond what they tell you over the phone. If your Karma is good, you may be spared the worst, perhaps even get some sleep. If not, the punishment is severe, and survival until Monday becomes your sole goal in life.
On occasion, however, there are a few lessons to be learned. Such was the case this weekend, my instructor being a most unfortunate gentleman who, alas, had plans far different from being my teacher. This weekend I learned:
- Don’t drink to excess.
- If you do, don’t try to sober up using crack cocaine.
- Don’t visit prostitutes, whether or not you adhere to lessons 1 and 2.
- If you do visit prostitutes (and I’m not suggesting that you do–see lesson 3), pay them for their services.
- If you refuse to pay them (and I’m not suggesting that you do–see 3 and 4), don’t inform them of this fact while standing around in your birthday suit.
- If you decline payment for the services of a lady of the evening, while still in your birthday suit, be sure she doesn’t have rapid access to sharp knives.
I encountered a man, at 2 AM Saturday morning, who embodied the Proverbial addage: “Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs, than a fool in his folly”–and who managed to make all of the above mistakes, in perfect sequence. The fair maiden, her purity despoiled and robbed of her just desserts, did repayeth said gentleman with the “unkindest cut of all”–a deadly underhand stroke designed to rob him of his manhood. It was, sadly, not a Burma Shave moment, although a close shave nevertheless: while sparing the rod, she spoiled the child–or the children, more accurately–laying them quite naked to the world, neatly bivalving the scrotum while miraculously sparing the jewels.
For those of you with very strong stomachs–or the steely detachment borne of depersonalizing professional training in medicine–here are the operative photographs, before and after the repair.
I warned you not to look unless you had a strong stomach … couldn’t resist, could you?
When asked how such a sequence of events might have taken place, our unfortunate teacher responded: “I don’t know–all I did was start down the stairs…”
I, for one, am going to be staying on the first floor for a while, avoiding the stairs at all costs…
13 comments so far ↓
Kim // Feb 13, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Nice work! The repair job, I mean. I can’t believe she didn’t damage the “jewels”. (I’d use the medical term but you never know who’ll try to google it and get here!).
One does hope he learned his lesson that night. And every man who reads this will avoid stairs like the plague, much like people who see “Psycho” still refuse to take showers….
Bogus Gold // Feb 13, 2006 at 8:09 pm
Important Safety Tips
A few tips from the good doctor:
1. Don’t drink to excess.
2. If you do, don’t try to sober up using crack cocaine.
3. Don’t visit prostitutes, whether or not you adhere to lessions 1 and 2.
…
Psycmeistr // Feb 13, 2006 at 8:17 pm
My nephew is currently in first-year interning in Chicago..
I think I’ll send him this link..
On second thought… It might scare him away from medicine for good.
kenju // Feb 15, 2006 at 2:01 pm
Any man that stupid deserves some type of punishment - maybe not stabbing, though…..LOL.
vanderleun // Feb 16, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Whoa! That’s gotta hurt…. AND leave a mark.
Vicki Small // Feb 16, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Definitely the bad ol’ stairs! I’m sure the excessive drinking and use of crack cocaine had nothing to do with it. I take it, tho’, that, *if* he was going to visit a prostitute and make all those other “mistakes,” he should’ve picked one on the first floor–? Is that where the stairs came in? Oh, never mind. I make it a firm practice never to visit prostitutes, anyway.
Oh–I didn’t look. Weak stomach.
Tom // Feb 19, 2006 at 11:45 am
And all I can think of is “The first cut is the deepest”.
DarkoV // Feb 20, 2006 at 10:04 am
Thanks for the warning. Just those words were enough to make me cross my legs and give thanks that my marriage is a fulfilling and happy one not necessitating any midnight ramblings.
Mama Mia // Feb 21, 2006 at 9:06 am
Excellent story. I particularly like your six rules. They should be idiot proof! Clearly they are not…
The Dark Avenger // Feb 21, 2006 at 11:36 am
There was an article in the Fresno Bee about 20 years ago about the physiological side-effects of mixing alcohol and cocaine at the same time. It seems that a compound known as
cocaethyleneis formed when both are consumed at the same time.
Keith Carlson // Feb 26, 2006 at 7:55 am
What a cautionary tale of almost biblical proportions. Warnings about the photos is a good idea for many readers out there. For myself, curiosity overwhelms any sense of potential repulsion. Funny how I can look at photos of the most grotesque medical emergencies, yet a photo of a snake—or worse a moving picture of said serpent—sends me into paroxysms of nausea and anorexia. How biblical is that?
The Doctor Is In » Yet Another Reason to Pay Your Call Girl… // Apr 3, 2006 at 2:11 pm
[…] Now, those who are regular readers here will quickly surmise that I am no proponent of visiting ladies of the evening–it’s a bad idea, no matter how you slice it. Wisdom dictates that all you stallions hang with the filly you brought to the dance, if you catch my drift. And fellows getting entangled with the law over prostitutes is hardly newsworthy nowadays, but… […]
Hold Harmless | The Doctor Is In // Mar 11, 2008 at 10:55 pm
[…] as a common enough failing of men, whether great or small. And visiting a prostitute is certainly not without risks — but that is a story for another […]