TAMPA, FL – Following the immense success of renaming registered nurses (RNs) to “Refreshments & Narcotics,” hospital administrators at Tampa Memorial Cross Hospital (TMCH) are now considering renaming medical doctors (MDs) to something much more accurate. The leading candidate is “Morphine & Dilaudid.”
“Our doctors aren’t really doctors anymore,” said TMCH CEO Karen Wildrens, while sipping a lovely refreshment brought by one of her new RNs. “These are different times. Doctors don’t practice medicine anymore. Patients don’t want doctors anymore. Patients just want someone who will prescribe narcotics: morphine or, even better, Dilaudid.”
A recent paper published in the New England Journal of Overdose (NEJO) found that two of the most frequently asked questions by hospitalized patients are “Where’s my morphine, damn it?!” and “Where’s my (curse word) Dilaudid?!”
Hospital administrators have yet to make a final decision since they haven’t ruled out the possibility of renaming MDs to something else. Though “Morphine & Dilaudid” is the current favorite, alternate titles being debated include “Morphine & Demerol” and “Meperidine & Dilaudid.” As one administrator put it, “It’s like choosing which one of your triplets is your favorite.”
“Administration has a point,” stated hospitalist David Becker, as he pushed some Narcan at bedside to reverse yet another opioid overdose. “This is all I do day in and day out. More morphine, more Dilaudid. I mean, really. Who needs a Doctor of Medicine to do this?” According to the same NEJO paper, the four most commonly used medications in hospital are Dilaudid, morphine, Percocet, and Vicodin. The fifth, interestingly enough, is Narcan.
Though TMCH physicians aren’t excited about the title change, they understand it is inevitable and have raised their voices to propose what they consider to be more accurate titles. Physician-proposed alternate titles include “Med-rec & Documentation,” “Mad & Dissatisfied,” “Miffed & Depressed,” “Meh & Debt,” and “Maître D.”
“The sad reality is that it’s no longer about The Art of Medicine,” explained family medicine physician Joan Sawyer, as she prepares to meet with another patient advocate about the same ole thing. “It’s about The Art of Narcs and The Art of Charts. Patients are dictating the new paradigm in medicine: it doesn’t matter what the disease is, just mask it in opioids.” Sawyer’s pager goes off, indicating a nearby code for respiratory depression. “Gotta love Medicine these days, right? Maybe MD should stand for Miosis & Dyspnea.”
