General Surgeon: Evidence-based medicine. “Oh, your tummy hurts? Well, let’s open you up and take a look, shall we?”
Emergency Medicine: Dilaudid. The screams will be deafening.
Cardiologist: Stethoscopes. If you can’t hear heart sounds without one, you must be a med student.
Internist: Placement. Within 3 days, the hospitalist service will be all chronic diarrhea and psych patients.
Gastroenterology: The little screen they look at during colonoscopies. They will just do it by “feel” and the Force.
Neurosurgeon: Anything. You’ve been giving up your family for Lent for 20 consecutive years, it’s time for something new.
Anesthesiologist: NPO status. “I see you had biscuits and gravy with coffee before coming in for your scheduled quadruple bypass. No problem.”
ENT: The “N.” For the next 2 months, it’s just ET.
Ophthalmologist: Examining the left or the right eye. You can choose, but you can’t do both.
Physical Therapist: Ambulating TID. I think you’ll find ambulating BID is just as gratifying.
Respiratory Therapist: Nebulizers. Surely there is something else you can use.
Gynecologist: Pap smears. They are just going to eyeball it.
Geriatrician: Decreased doses. Full strength medication dose for every senior.
Pathologist: Isolation from human contact. Pathologists will be reading out specimens in the hospital cafeteria every day at noon. Everybody come watch and ask how their day is going.
Psychiatrist: Patient restraints. Let’s just see where this takes us.
Family Medicine: Longitudinal health. Caring for the whole person no matter what age?! Focus on the part, not the whole, just like everyone else.
Neurologist: MRI. You can always find the lesion yourself, what do you need an MRI for anyway?
Pharmacy: Dosing. Just pick a number and run with it. What’s the worst thing that can happen?
Nurse: Access to Pyxis. “You need a toothbrush? We keep those in the Pyxis, and unfortunately, I’ve given that up for Lent.”
Nephrologist: Urine specific gravity. You’ll have to figure it out like nephrologists used to do back in the day. By smell.
Pediatrician: Parents. No parents allowed. Lent may last forever.
Physiatrist: TENS units. Only EIGHT units are available.
Pulmonologist: Percussion. Oh wait, we got rid of that like a decade ago.
Orthopedic Surgeon: Femurs. You’ll have to fix only the small, stupid, weak bones. It’ll be a long 2 months, but you’ll be fine.
Obstetrician: Fetal heart tracings. Let’s just wing it since they don’t truly help.
Dermatologist: Local anesthesia. It’s not so fun being a dermatologist now, is it?
Radiologist: Darkness. You can read an X-ray in harsh fluorescent lights like all the other doctors. It’s not going to kill you. Or will it?
Infectious Disease: Blood cultures. How much do we really need them anyway?
Pastoral Care: Religion. You can still offer hope, just not prayer.
Urologist: Penises. Sorry, I just still can’t believe that’s what you’ve chosen for a career.
Vascular Surgeon: Doppler. Find another super annoying sound device.
Thoracic Surgeon: Double lumen tubes. Time to just work around that lung. You got this!
Hospital Administrator: Your loving, unconditional respect for the wonderful doctors and nurses who give you purpose in life.
