What Are Health Care Professionals Giving Up for Lent (By Specialty)?

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.