Hospital administrators at Unitis Healthcare have implemented a new communication system for patients at all of their hospitals in the New England region. Admitted patients to the hospital will have the option to download Twitter to their phones and can communicate to their nurses and doctors via twitter.

“We are breaking ground in hospital communications from the days of the call light,” states CEO of Saint Mary Hospital Rachel Evertins.  “Now patients can tweet their nurses and doctors 24/7 to ask questions and to receive better service. Call light requests and non-verified twitter patients will still be seen and taken care of, but if you pay for the $8 blue checkmark verification, we will attend to your needs much quicker.”

A recent postoperative patient at Saint Mary Hospital raved about the new service. “Sometimes finding the call light and actually talking to a Nurse was a pain.  Now I can just use my phone and tweet my request or question. Before being verified, I had multiple spam accounts so the nurses had no clue if the requests were legit. Like one night they received 14 requests for a turkey sandwich and dilaudid push from me when I am more of a 2-3 sandwich guy and maybe a dilaudid push every once in a while!”

Unitis Healthcare has teamed up with Twitter to receive $4 per patient that signs up for the service.  Patients will have the option to continue the $8 subscription on a monthly basis which is especially appealing for frequent flyers.

Mayim Bialik may be the straw that broke the camel’s back once and for all for Anesthesiologists throughout the world. On Friday night’s Jeopardy during the meet and greet portion, Bialik referred to one of the contestants who is an anesthesiologist as “just an anesthesiologist”, and not a surgeon. 

Contestant, Dr. Yian Chen, was telling a story about how he became a doctor which involved trying to master the “claw” machine as a child when Bialik responded, “That’s pretty awesome, but you didn’t become a surgeon, just an anesthesiologist.“

Dr. Megan Mcgrath, head of The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) was taking a break from developing more MOCA sims and watching Jeopardy live when the deathblow struck.  “That’s a wrap folks, we give up,” stated Mcgrath. Recent public surveys have indicated that 88% of the general population doesn’t think Anesthesiologists are physicians.  Another surveys demonstrated 93% of patients think the Anesthesiologist’s job is to “just get me off to sleep” and nothing else.

“Bialik reaffirmed this tonight and so it is probably time to just hang it up. We are all just wannaby surgeons who weren’t smart enough in anatomy lab or who didn’t play enough video games growing up,” a choking up Mcgrath tried to say.

The ASA will rebrand to the ASJA or The American Society of Just Anesthesiologists and will likely move towards working at Mattress Discounters operating bed controls for new customers in their showrooms.  Hospital administrators plan to fill the void with anyone working in or near a hospital that is wearing a white lab coat and scrubs.

New York City, NY –For the past year, Effin Cluless FNP, DNP, RN, MSN, BLS, ACLS, GED, BFD, OPP, OMG, FFS has been he CEO of the Hospital for Regular Surgery (HRS) in New York City. He prides himself on keeping a finger on the pulse of the worker bees at HRS whose work pays his astronomical salary; the physicians. This is why he was devastated when he realized at 3PM on March 30 that he had forgotten it was Doctor’s Day!

In a self-described “brilliant move straight out of hospital leadership textbooks,” Cluless found his email that he had sent out for Nurse’s week last May, copied the first paragraph into a new email, and changed the heading to “Dear Doctors” from “Dear Nurses.” He then typed the following “As I know you are all too busy making lots of money for your beloved administrators to celebrate a full day, I offer a heartfelt thank you and kudos to all of you in this very efficient Doctor’s Minute.” After clicking send, Cluless sat back smiling knowing he had certainly made the days of countless doctors at HRS with his email.

“Honestly, it was the very absolute least I could do. We give gifts for nurse’s week, medical assistant week, physician assistant week, and administrator’s month, but we know most doctors make 20% of my salary or even more!” Cluless explained.

“They don’t need a physical token of appreciation, what they need is a mass email with a return receipt request sent right before I go home for the day at 3PM. I don’t know if every physician in our system is going to print out this email and hang it on their fridge at home, but I’d like to think they do.”

Last year, Doctors received a heartfelt thank you in person, however due to Cluless not realizing that it was Doctor’s day until 20 minutes after his normal departure time, there clearly was not time for in person thanks and a genuine e-mail thank you would have to suffice. 

“I believe that our Doctors know we appreciate them based on everything we do for them throughout the year. Our Doctors have to see all the things we do to show our appreciation for them including the mandatory online wellness training, new EMR changes that help us track their productivity, and keeping their pay stagnant while the Administration gets 25% raises annually.”

“Our Doctors know how much we appreciate efficiency as we keep increasing their work and administrative load while decreasing support staff. If they can see 50 patients in one clinic day, they can surely receive a whole day’s worth of appreciation in their Doctor’s minute!” Cluless explained as he climbed into his Tesla Model Y in his reserved parking spot. 

Sacramento, CA – Dr. Atul, a general surgeon, who evidently graduated from medical school thinks he can actually start a surgical case a 3pm! What an idiot!!!

Dr. Atul, who passed his surgical boards, was seen at the control desk at 3:17pm asking why his patient was not in the OR. “My case was scheduled 17 minutes ago!” he was overheard sounding frustrated at the charge nurse.

Dr. Atul, who is normally well-liked and friendly to all the OR staff, even Anesthesia, is totally baffled that ORs around the country completely shut down from 2:40 to 3:30. No way will nurses start a case after 2:30pm because the paperwork takes almost a half hour to complete and shift change is at 3.

Dr. Atul, bless your heart.

Las Vegas, NV – With COVID still raging across the country, medical professionals of all walks have been looking for ways to burn off some steam. A main outlet used to be going to a bar to meet strangers for one night stands and possible long term romances.

With COVID shutting down bars and clubs in most cities, Tinder and other “dating” apps have been thrust into the forefront of the dating scene.

We decided to look into the Tinder profiles of physicians and other health care professionals of various specialties/levels of training and see how they describe their dating style. What we found will astound, puzzle, and probably disturb you:

Administration: I’m going to provide no help during the process, but be damn sure I’ll take full credit for it afterwards!

Anesthesia: You may not feel anything but you also won’t have any pain afterwards. 

Cardiology: If my loving gives you a racing heart, I’ve got diltiazem for you.

Chiropractic: There is zero evidence I provide any benefit, but I’ll give you the best placebo you can imagine! 

Dermatology: My beauty is only skin deep but if you wanted inner beauty, you wouldn’t be looking on this app. 

Emergency Medicine: I’ll do anything you want to do, it just takes me 4 hours and a couple tests to figure out what it is. 

ENT: Like the Weber test, I lateral one toward bad conduct!

Family Practice: Whatever you’d like to do, I can handle it. If I can’t, I can find someone who can. 

General surgery: We’ll be up all night and it will be so good, you’ll have rebound tenderness by morning! 

GI: Pick a hole, we’ll scope it out!

Heme/onc: My love for you is metastatic and not just through your lymph nodes!

Infectious diseases: Whatever you’ve caught from this app, I can treat it. 

Internal Medicine: I don’t care if you’re a bit older and have a lot of problems! In fact, I prefer it! 

Naturopath: Just like in an actual medical emergency, I’m useless in the bedroom, but I think echinacea can help that!

Neurology: My essential tremor won’t be the only thing shaking tonight!

Neurosurgery: We can even go transsphenoidal if you’d like!

Nurse Practitioner: I have no experience and no idea what I’m doing, so I asked a Newbie NP Facebook group and now I’m ready to do that thing I still don’t understand!

OBGYN: I know what’s down there and I don’t need a map to find the spot. 

Occupational Medicine: You’re going to talk about me at work on Monday. 

Orthopaedic Surgery: I’m gonna nail you like a comminuted femur; it’ll be messy and I may need some clamps. 

Palliative Care: It’s all gonna end so we might as well go out together!

Pathology: I’m used to people who don’t move. 

Pediatrics: If you’re good, I’ll give you a sticker after! 

Physical Therapy: You’re going to need to stretch before and after.

Plastic Surgery: I can make you look better while you’re doing it. 

Psychiatry: If you’d rather just talk about it, I have an in house psychologist. 

Pulmonology: If I take your breath away, I know how to give it back. 

Rheumatology: Pain in your joints? I can work with that!

Urology: I can do a surgery on myself to make it bigger, but I’ve been told I don’t need it. 

Vascular surgery: If it doesn’t work for you, we can always chop it off!

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) first granted Emergency Use Authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine earlier this month, with Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine shortly gaining the same authorization very shortly thereafter. There have been many questions asking how these two vaccines stack up against one another, but a huge question remains largely unanswered: how do they both stack up against the Invincibility Stars or Starmen from Super Mario Bros.?

TARGET POPULATION: Not medical students. An Invincibility Star is reserved only for Mario, maybe Luigi.

EFFICACY: The Pfizer and Modern COVID-19 vaccine were >90% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19, the former 7 days after the second dose and the latter 14 days after the second dose. An Invincibility Star is immediately effective at preventing not only symptomatic COVID-19 but also any attacks by Bowser’s henchmen.

DURATION OF PROTECTION: Unclear, but the hope is both Pfizer & Moderna vaccines will convey protection on the order of several months. Sadly, Invincibility Star convey protection only for a few seconds.

BACKGROUND MUSIC: The Invincibility Star is accompanied with a musical theme. The COVID-19 vaccines do not come with a musical theme, something which has drawn the ire of healthcare personnel and gamers alike.

SIDE EFFECTS: The most common side effects from the COVID-19 vaccines are pain at the injection site, headache, muscle pain, fatigue, hope, relief, and optimism. The most common side effect of the Invincibility Star is post-Invincibility Star depression.

PREGNANT OR LACTATING WOMEN: The Covid-19 vaccines or Invincibility Stars have not been studied in pregnant or lactating women.

STORAGE: The Pfizer vaccine must be kept at -94 Fahrenheit and used within 5 days of thawing. The Moderna vaccine must be kept at -4 Fahrenheit, and can be stored in the refrigerator for 30 days or room temperature for 12 hours. Starmen must be used before it exits the screen.

PURCHASE: Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can be purchased from the companies directly; a minimum order of 100 and 975 doses, respectively. An Invincibility Star cannot be purchased; it must be found through sheer determination and luck after breaking lots and lots of bricks.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, a week after my first dose of vaccine,

The in-laws came to visit, when they should be quarantined!

I ducked and I hid, more than 6 feet away,

They were maskless, singing carols, much to my dismay!

‘Rona was in the air, coming in my direction,

But my poor immunity had not yet reached perfection.

Dinner was served, everyone ate with glee,

I ate out on our porch, just as it hit 1 degree.

My sister-in-law, her kids told tales from a Mexico trip,

She just returned yesterday, I swear I saw her nose just drip!

Opened gifts in full PPE, can’t smell my wife’s new perfume,

Since I’m wearing 3 N95s while in our attic on Zoom.

I need to make it 2 more weeks without getting an exposure,

Why’d the holidays hit before vaccine limbo was over?!

Avoiding the younger cousins, who just returned from the bars,

Threw mistletoe out the window, wish I could isolate on Mars!

Can’t wait for shot number two, when my body’s ready to fight,

But for now Merry Christmas to all, and to all a safe night!

ATLANTA, GA – Commenting their status as backline healthcare workers, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) has recommended medical students get vaccinated against COVID-19, but only after the general population, cacti, several species of toads, and humpback whales do so first.

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was the first in the United States green-lit for Emergency Use Authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, with the Moderna vaccine earning approval shortly thereafter. The initial rollout of the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has targeted two main groups: residents of long-term care facilities & health care personnel. Definitely not medical students.

The next targets would include people with underlying medical conditions that put them at significantly higher risk, older adults living in crowded settings, teachers, child care workers, and essential workers, with the eventual hope that the general population would get access to vaccines as Pfizer & Moderna continue to mass-produce them. But definitely not medical students.

“Once we have vaccinated the general population, we will then turn our attention to the next highest risk groups: fauna including cacti, amphibians including several species of toads, and aquatic life starting first with humpback whales,” explained CDC spokesperson Cazzie Barnes. “Only once every living creature in the United States has been vaccinated will the country’s medical students be next up in the queue.”

A statement released by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) was optimistic and surprisingly upbeat. “We may be last but at least this time we’re not forgotten.” The nation’s cohort of frontline healthcare workers look forward to the day medical students get vaccinated so that they can help their medical and surgical teams with the essential task of obtaining a family history.

What are the ingredients in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine?

The ingredients include mRNA, lipids, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, sucrose, black pepper, rosemary, and sage.

How is the vaccine administered?

With pleasure.

I just received my first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. What I should look out for?

Side effects: injection site pain or swelling, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, fever, limb detachment, rectal prolapse, sudden aversion to Dua Lipa, sudden affinity for Nickelback.

What should I do about side effects?

Ignore them and power through. Unless you develop sudden affinity for Nickelback, in which case call 911 immediately as this is a life-threatening emergency.

I can’t believe the Falcons blew such a huge lead and lost to the Buccaneers. Is the vaccine to blame?

Absolutely.

I’m an ER physician, and my arm is a little sore from the shot and I’m worried if I have to intubate a patient my ability do so might be compromised. Any advice?

Use BIPAP.

I’m a gastroenterologist. I have mild arm soreness. I have several routine colonoscopies to perform tomorrow. What should I do if I can’t complete them due to the pain?

Leave the colonoscope in place and have the patient return in several days once you are asymptomatic and able to retrieve it.

Any advice on how to manage pain at the injection site?

As a general rule, it is always better to prevent a condition than to treat it once it has been acquired. Tylenol or NSAIDS may do the trick, but there is always the risk of experiencing side effects with these medications. Therefore, we recommend amputation of the affected to arm to prevent progression of symptoms.

I just got my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Is it okay to have a beer?

Though there haven’t been any known interactions between alcohol and vaccines, proper technique during a keg stand, shotgunning, or flip cup might be compromised due to arm pain. According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, beer helmets were made for situations just like these.

I received the shot several days ago and haven’t experienced a single side effect. Should I be concerned?

Yes. It is very likely you received a placebo vaccine or, worse, you might have been injected with live unattenuated COVID-19. Initiate quarantine immediately.

What should I do with my COVID-19 vaccination card?

Laminate it, frame it. When you return for your second dose of the vaccine, you will be applauded for your arts & crafts skills. Way to cultivate a hobby during a pandemic!

What happens if I don’t receive the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine exactly 21 days after the first dose?

You will die.

ATLANTA, GA – The most common side effect or adverse reaction healthcare workers are experiencing after the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is hope, Gomerblog reports.

“The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has been overwhelmed by thousands of reports from emergency medical technicians, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, and other healthcare personnel who are experiencing uncomfortable mild but new symptoms such as hope, relief, and optimism,” explained Cazzie Barnes, a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). “These symptoms have ceased to exist since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, so it is indeed alarming. We need to be cautious and methodical as we process these data, and continue to encourage everyone to report these issues as they arise.”

VAERS was established in 1990 for the purpose of detecting any safety issues for vaccines licensed in the United States. It is co-managed by both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There are no licensed vaccines for COVID-19; however, both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna received Emergency Use Authorization earlier this month.

Based on a Gomerblog poll of 5,000 healthcare workers who have already received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, hope was more common than arm injection site pain or headache. Troubling indeed.

In a joint statement today, the CDC and FDA wanted to remind vaccinated healthcare workers should they develop a sudden onset of positivity or an acute facial defect known as a smile to seek medical attention immediately.