Local general surgeon, Arthur Wellesley, reclined in his leather armchair yearning for the days of General Surgery domination of nearly every aspect of Surgery. “Back in the day, our forefathers controlled everything. We did the amputations, C-sections, mole removals, heart surgery, all of it. But look at us now, we excise accessory organs, patch hernias, and deal with various afflictions of the buttocks. It’s sad.”
Once the Lords of the Hospital, general surgeons no longer hold the prestige of being the universal operators they once were. Gone are the reserved parking spaces, the dedicated OR days and most importantly, the monogrammed thrones in the front row of medical staff meetings.
“It’s sad really, they used to fix bones. They used to love bones. Now I am the lover of bones,” explained local orthopaedic surgeon Chester Flexington. “I honestly couldn’t name an organ they operate on. To be fair, I can’t name that many organs beside the Ancef pump and the bone aerators.”
Around the turn of the 20th century, General Surgeons operated from toes to the top of the skull, much the way the British empire once covered the entire globe. Now both are back to their small little island of respite and even that island is getting pecked at by the likes of Family Practice, Interventional Radiology, and Scotland.
“They’re taking everything! GI and FP doing colonoscopies and flex sigs, IR doing abscess drainage. Abscess drainage! We hate pus and they’ve even taken that away from us!” vented a visible exasperated Wellesley. “We might as well be Internal Medicine with a minor OR once a month. All we have left is appendices, gallbladders, lipomas, and hernias and the first three of those probably don’t even need surgery, but it’s all we have left!”
Another local orthopaedic surgeon overhearing this rant cast an apprehensive eye at a nearby podiatrist then threatened to take his lunch money if he ever booked a surgery above the talus.
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