Category: Rants

Well gosh, I guess I became a doctor because, ever since I was a little boy, I just wanted to help people. I don’t…tell this story very often, but, I remember when I was seven years old, one time I found a bird that had fallen out of its nest. And so, I picked him up, and I brought him home, and I made him a house out of an empty shoebox, and — Oh my God! —- I became a doctor for the same four reasons everybody does: Chicks, money, power, and chicks. But, since HMOs have made it virtually impossible to make any real money, which directly affects the number of chicks who come sniffing around — and don’t ask me what tree they’re barkin’ up, ’cause they’re sure as hell not pissin’ on mine. And as far as power goes, well, here I am during my free time letting some thirteen-year-old psychology fellow who couldn’t cut it in real medicine ask me questions about my personal life. So, here’s the inside scoop, there, pumpkin: Why don’t you go ahead and tell me all about power.

Work! I hate you! You suck!

who in God’s name wants to hear that every day?! Good morning.” In the immortal words of Daffy Duck: I demand that you shoot me now.”

Lookit, I know what you’re doing in there. You think that if you act like Dr. Sad Sack that the patient’s gonna opt out of surgery and I’ll have to spend yet another week with a man who has such an unnatural attachment to his gallbladder that, left to his own devices, he would rent a motel room and have sex with it. Now come on, I need you to sling that I’m gonna get freaky-deeky with my chizzle and–and slizzle up the dizzle for my…bee-aye…yitch” stuff that, you know, you do so well.”

Gather round, doomed new interns who just paged me! Quick question: What does this outfit tell you? (…) It means that I was just working out — which, incidentally, is the last remaining activity I have in my adult life that qualifies as me time.” Other activities recently crossed off of that list include my morning dump and all showers. You see, my dear son Jack has decided that those are team sports. However, I’m here, and I’m totally psyched to hear whatever the super-de-duper reason is that you paged me.”

And bam! The shine’s off the apple. And that’s when you find out that that pretty little girl you married isn’t a pretty little girl at all. No, she’s a man-eater. And I’m not talking about the whoa-whoa, here she comes” kind of man-eater. I’m talking about the kind that uses your dignity as a dishtowel to wipe up any shreds of manhood that might be stuck inside the sink. Of course, I may have tormented her from time to time; but, honest to God, that’s what I thought marriage was all about. So much so that, by the end of that relationship, I honestly don’t know who I hated more — her or me? I used to sit around and wonder…why our friends weren’t trying to destroy each other, like we were. And here, it turns out, the answer’s pretty simple: They weren’t unhappy. We were. “

Fine. Fine. Fine, fine, fine, fine. You wanna know the real skinny? If you want to be good doctors and nurses, you damn-sure better get ready to get in trouble – a lot. Because patients are stupid, and they are really scared. And some of them need you to hold their hands, and you should. Others need you to kick their asses, and you absolutely should do that, too. But, it really all just comes down to whether or not you got the guts to say just exactly what you know in your heart of hearts you really should say.

Look, Newbie, if you leave this hospital knowing only one thing — and, God save me, it seems like there’s a pretty good chance that just might happen — let that one thing be this: that medicine is a collaborative effort. And that means that your opinion is just as important as mine. So, let’s see if you got the gobstoppers to take the lead. Be me!

I cannot believe that you of all people are the one I have to tell this to: Ego is good, you dumb-ass. It’s the reason that guy wants you to be his surgeon, it’s the reason that she is borderline attracted to you, and it’s the reason she so desperately wants to marry you. Bottom line, in medicine, half of pulling it off is believing you’re the biggest, smartest bad-ass of a doctor to ever walk these halls. You wanna see how you end up if you don’t believe that?

Carla, for something to be an issue, it needs to cause a problem. I mean, honestly, aside from having to — by law — remain thirty feet away from a certain telemarketer who I visited while he was eating his dinner, I don’t see the downside.