PHILADELPHIA, PA – Boy, do we have a true feel-good story for you this Christmas. Orthopedic intern, Bryce Bonebreaker, learned he did in fact make Santa’s Good Orthopod list when he unwrapped all his gifts under the Christmas tree and found it contained over 1000 feet of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) piping, which was just what he wanted this holiday season.
“I’m a kid in a candy store, I can’t believe it!” Bonebreaker exclaimed, playing with all the different types of PVC piping as if they were Legos. “There’s short ones, big ones, fat ones, skinny ones, old ones, new ones, some covered with foam, some not, I mean, this is beyond awesome.” He let out a huge ecstatic scream. “BEST! CHRISTMAS! EVER!”
Before orthopedic interns perform surgery on live patients, they need to become familiar with the use of drills and screws. It is not uncommon for orthopedic interns in training programs to practice on materials that you would normally find at hardware stores. Interns become acquainted with entry and exit points, drilling at different angles, and repairing fractured PVC piping. Sometimes they’ll practice on wood blocks, other times they’ll practice on PVC pipes.
To the naked eye of someone who has tremendously poor vision, long bones and PVC piping are indistinguishable.
“We’ve spent a lot of time trying to drill holes into PVC piping while minimizing the distance we plunge through to the other side that is lined with foam,” said Bonebreaker, while playing with two PVC pipes like they were drumsticks. “That’s why I when I sat on Santa’s lap this year I told him all I wanted was tons and tons of piping, so I can practice my technical skills.”
Though he didn’t ask this for Christmas, Santa has told Gomerblog that he got Bonebreaker “some pretty sweet drills” as well.
In other news, fellow orthopedic intern Riley Weakarms unfortunately made Santa’s Bad Orthopod list and was punished with a twenty-dollar Fisher-Price Drillin’ Action Tool Set.
