Anesthesiologists Now Offering Tap from a Ball-Peen Hammer as Natural Option for Sedation

Under pressure from the Natural Medicine movement, the American Society of Anesthesiologists have discovered a “natural” and “drug-free” approach toward preparing a patient for surgery: a firm, well-placed knock to the skull with a ball-peen hammer.

Practitioners of holistic and natural remedies are celebrating the change.

“Surgery is, of course, a last-ditch effort if appropriate crystal placement doesn’t work,” said local natural medicine practitioner David “Banana” Smith. “But if a chakra realignment and my own extract of donkey sweat ($99 per ounce on my website) aren’t enough to treat a compound leg fracture, for example, one of my followers might be faced with no other option than surgery. I can sleep better in my multi-million dollar home tonight knowing that, if anything happens to me that requires going under the knife, they can just put me down naturally with a hammer to the head instead of filling Big Pharma’s pockets with sales from sedatives.”

So far, the hammer initiative has been a success. While the vast majority of people still prefer to go with sedation for surgery, a few vocal opponents of modern medicine have taken the hammer option. Coincidentally, job satisfaction scores for anesthesiologists have increased dramatically since the initiative began.

Dr. Sonny Soma, an anesthesiologist for the Cleveland Clinic system shared a recent success story.

“I had a patient the other day who needed her gallbladder removed. While she was being prepped for surgery, she did a Google search and found that gallbladders can heal on their own with the right combination of essential oils rubbed on the abdomen. She started refusing all drugs even though she was in immense pain and her liver was starting to fail. With a simple tap of a hammer, we had her in surgery in minutes.”

With the success of hammer sedation, hospitals are researching other viable options to bridge the gap between natural and modern medicine. Johns Hopkins is exploring “fresh air treatment,” in which a patient refusing all treatments is simply asked to go outside, take deep breaths of fresh air, and walk as far away from the building as possible.