Arlington, Virginia — This Thanksgiving third year medical student at the University of Virginia and future general surgeon Tucker McMahon offered to carve the family turkey. Relatives were surprised when McMahon switched to Bovie unipolar electrocautery after making the first incision. McMahon, “When it comes to separating fascia and dissecting out delicate structures in a hemostatic and controlled fashion, it’s really hard to beat the Bovie.”
With his younger brother Hunter, a fourth year pre-med at Georgetown, acting as first assist, Tucker was able to enter the bird’s thoracic cavity with relative ease and enough time to pimp Hunter on the constituents of Gammy’s famous stuffing. But not everyone found this as educational as the McMahon brothers. Linda, a cousin visiting from out of town, said of her younger relations, “It was really weird. Tucker washed his hands in the sink for at least four minutes before standing in the middle of the kitchen waiting for me to slip the apron over his head.”
Upon entering the thoracic cavity, Hunter attempted a laparoscopic removal of the bird’s wishbone, a move intended to impress relatives with his minimally invasive and lucratively billable technique. But the turkey’s anatomy proved more complex than anticipated and the brothers converted to open as Gampy’s blood sugar fell dangerously low.
Their mother, Melissa had this to say, “It’s nice to see the boys so eager to help out this year. That said, I’m worried that he’s alienating those of us closest to him with his brooding stares and growing God-complex.” His father chimed in, “I’m not sure what’s gotten into the boy. When my wife was having trouble finding the baster, he was grumbling aloud that ‘we do this the same way, every year.’ I mean, we sent him to medical school with the hope that he would become a playful pediatrician or an inquisitive internist. Now he’s a monster who clomps around in cowboy boots. Where did those even come from?”
Last anyone heard from the McMahon household, Hunter was asking Uncle Dave, an anesthesiologist at Washington Memorial and currently seated at the head of the family feast, “for some reverse T” and to “get ready to hang another bag of gravy.”
