DIY Surgery

You know that commercial where there's a guy sitting at his kitchen table, butter knife in hand and he's talking to his doctor over the phone? The doctor is instructing him to pick up a knife and make an incision under the 5th rib and the guy has this really scared/confused look on his face and he's like, "Are you sure I should be doing this?" I can't remember what the commercial is for, maybe insurance or something, but I always thought it was pretty funny.

Well, today I was at work and my boss is a GI surgeon. Normally he does not have any surgeries scheduled for Thursday so he can see patients in the clinic. But today he had a surgery to do that apparently was getting pushed back all day yesterday. The problem was that we started our research study today and we had to get things set up with our first subject. We ran into a few technical issues with my new computer*, so he was hanging around to try to fix it, even though he really needed to head up to the OR. So he calls up his resident in the OR and here's how the conversation went:

"Yes, just go ahead and start in the lower left quadrant. Yes, I think it will
be ok, just start in the lower left quadrant and make an incision. Use the "such
and such" needle. Yes, ok, just go ahead and get started and I will be up there
later. Yes, and be careful!"

Seriously, maybe you just had to be there, but this really struck me as funny. It totally reminded me of that commercial. It took every ounce of willpower not to crack up laughing. Maybe if he hadn't added in that "Be Careful!!" at the end it wouldn't have been so funny. And of course, the patient, who is coming in to try to get gastric bypass surgery, was sitting right there. I know that I would have been thinking "Am I really sure I want to get surgery here?"
I think that's why they make sure people are good and knocked out so they don't realize what's going on!


*I got a new laptop computer to use for work. It's wonderful to have a portable computer after I had to turn my notebook in when the internship ended. Now I can hang out at Capanna and drink coffee and look cool with my new computer!