GREEN BAY, WI – Local Orthopaedic surgeon Stan Deverance was at a hospital wide grand rounds last week when he uncovered a nearly unspeakable evil. The internist giving the talk was recommending Calcium channel blockers for elderly patients!
Dr. Deverance was outraged, “old people have osteoporosis. That means weak bones and it’s got something to do with low calcium. This asshat was telling people to block the calcium channels! If anything we should be propping those damn channels open!!”
“I had heard of beta blockers and I was fine with that. Beta means not as good as alpha so it’s a loser. Losers can be blocked. Apparently there are alpha blockers which I don’t agree with but it’s not the end of the world. But to block the most important element for bone health and the only electrolyte I can name is heresy!”
Dr. Deverance has commenced guerrilla warfare to deal with this problem. “Early mornings between working out and the start of surgery, I log on to the EMR and cancel all the calcium channel blockers for every patient admitted to Lombardi General. Then I recheck them all during anesthesia delays and delete any new calcium channel blockers.”
The next step is to spread the news to orthopods all over, “I’ve emailed the AAOS about these so called calcium channel blockers several times and am yet to hear back. I’m sure they’re already all over it. In the meantime I’ll keep fighting the good fight and protecting the sacred channels of calcium from the bone-hating nerds.”