The post-it reads ‘if you see a surgeon showing their ass and acting like a toddler, imagine them with a pacifier or, better yet, light up shoes so you’ll have a light show to entertain you when they stomp their little feet in pique.’
Surgeons, sometimes they act like toddlers.
Especially when they don’t get their way.
Or “their” team isn’t available.
Or “their” room is in use during an emergency.
Or “their” instrumentation that they always use, don’t you know, what are you, stupid? is in use by another surgeon.
Hey, I wrote that book! It was part of an operating room kiddie book series that were decidedly not for children.
I titled it “Dr. Alexander, and the very bad, horrible, no good day”.
Much went wrong for Dr. Alexander.
There was a tricycle in his parking spot.
His team was on vacation and he had to work with those other clowns.
His scissors had been swapped for safety scissors.
He had to perform surgery in the janitor’s closet.
His day went so very, very badly.
And then he woke up! Clutching his teddy bear on a stretcher, sucking his thumb.
It was all just a bad dream.
It is comforting to think of misbehaving surgeons and administrators as toddlers. Well, I think it is comforting anyway.
And, with the new imagery of light-up shoes that a friend told me about, highly entertaining.
Doctors, sometimes they are just toddlers. Too bad we don’t have the power to put them in a time-out and take away their online privileges.
It is fun to imagine.
Irate surgeons stamping their feet wearing the light-up shoes. Threatening to hold their breath until they get their way. Threatening to yank their cases until they are told that insurance wants the patient to have surgery at this hospital.
You know, life in the OR.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 