SANTE FE, NM – Dr. Brad Jacks suspected it for months. Anesthesia personnel would leave for a break in the middle of a quick ear tubes procedure and come back to the OR room fifteen minutes later, clutching their heads and whimpering about “brain freeze.”
“The worst is anesthesiologist Darrell Cameron,” stated Dr. Jacks. “You can’t trust someone with two first names, and after he takes a break the patients always wake up sputtering because of his constant dripping tears from these mysterious headaches. Even more mysterious is that his suction makes all these horrible noises, like he’s clearing secretions from Jabba the Hut.”
Dr. Cameron was not available to interview due to a schedule conflict with a scheduled break, but we did catch up with nurse anesthetist Rusty Shawn. He initially ignored our questions, steering the conversation toward less newsworthy topics, such as the pronunciation of his last name (past participle of the word “see”). He denied all allegations until this astute reporter noticed a creamy blue raspberry slushie in Rusty’s non-intubating hand.
“It’s true,” Rusty murmured sheepishly. “We bribed someone from the Biomed Department to help us build it right in our break room. Everyone else thought it was a backup ventilator, and against Joint Commission regulations, we never even allowed the maintenance guys to inspect it! We’ve been able to keep our slushie machine a secret for so long because even suspicious Dr. Jacks didn’t dare turn the lever to nitrous oxide or isoflurane, but those flavors are actually blueberry and grape!”
Rusty’s face darkened. “It would still be a secret too, our lovely, icy, refreshing, sugary secret, if Dr. Cameron hadn’t been too jittery from his favorite lemon banana slushie. Every alarm on his anesthesia machine made him jump, so he substituted our slushie machine in its place. I don’t know what he was thinking, but that hungry little patient of his was so happy when Dr. Cameron pushed the oxygen flush button and green apple slushie came out!”
