Sweet cheeks

Here's a quick quiz for those contemplating getting into medicine as a career - complete this sentence:
"I wish to become a doctor because..."

1. I want to help people.
2. I enjoy challenges.
3. I got good marks at school.
4. I enjoy pushing people's guts back up into their bums.

Mark my words, if you're applying to medical school, you'll be asked that question, and the correct answer is 4. Bums is where it's at.  The panel will know that you're a pragmatist rather than an idealist and you'll be in like Flynn.

Almost everyone has a rectum.

Some people have prolapsed rectums that fall out of their bums.

A few people have rectum that flop right out if you so much as glance at them wrongly.

Which is fine, don't get me wrong.  Easy in, easy out, in general.  Problem is, if they stay out for a while they can start to swell up, then it's hard to push them back in.  It's like trying to thread a needle with a marshmallow.

If you find yourself having to push a swollen rectum back up someone's bum, here's a handy tip: if you sprinkle said rectum with some salt or sugar, water will be drawn out of the mucosal surface by osmosis.  This reduces the swelling and makes it easier to push it back into the bum.

Having said that, I prefer sugar to salt, for two main reasons.

1. You know how much it hurts when you get something salty on an ulcer inside your lip? The idea of giving someone that feeling in their bottom just makes me cringe.
2. I think using sugar instead of salt is safer, just in case someone walks by with a lemon and some tequila and gets the wrong idea about what's going on.  Could be an ugly scene.

So I use sugar.  A teaspoon or so will do.  Leave it on for a few minutes so it has time to shlurp that water out of that rectum.  But before you leap ahead and push it back into the bum, wipe the sugar off first.  You don't want to attract ants.

Any questions?

German is an incredibly versatile language

Manfraurektumverwirrung (n.) - The disorientation felt by the medical examiner during a rectal exam when they realize that the man's rectum feels much more like a woman's rectum because the man has had a total prostatectomy so there is no anterior firmness, so for a brief moment the doctor is concerned that they have made a terrible mistake and is fact examining the wrong patient.

Sincere gratitude

Thank you for laughing at me when I needed help.
Thank you for being incredulous that I couldn't read your mind.
Thank you for making me guess when you knew I didn't know.
Thank you for answering my question with a question
Thank you for questioning my answer too.

Thank you for being too busy for me.
Thank you for having heard more interesting stories far away, in another time.
Thank you for not meeting my eye.

Thank you for wandering and hiding and making me chase you.
Thank you for your affectation of indolence which told me what I needed to know.
Thank you for dismissing me.

Thank you for monitoring me.
Thank you for checking up on me behind my back.
Thank you for offering. I agreed, but then the offer changed.  Thank you.
Thank you for making me feel like I could do this.

Thank you for staring at me in disbelief.
Thank you for mistrusting me.
Thank you for threatening me.
Thank you for trying to take away my options.

Thank you for talking and talking and talking.
Thank you for not listening.
Thank you for not trusting me.
Thank you for bragging and strutting and pouting.

Thank you for grinning and smiling and acting like my friend.
Thank you for seizing the opportunity to belittle me.
Thank you for asserting your dominance.
Thank you for your misperception of my admiration.

Thank you for being lazy.
Thank you for making me do your dirty work.
Thank you for mocking and boasting and preening.

Thank you for trusting me.
Thank you for thanking me for what I have to give.
Thank you for listening to my opinion.
Thank you for sympathising.
Thank you for making me feel like a human.

Thank you for interrupting.
Thank you for correcting.
Thank you for not listening.
Thank you for looking so bored.
Thank you for making your obligations seem like favours.
Thank you for showing your contempt.

Where have all the nurses gone?

Doctors are a superstitious, cowardly lot.  So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts.  Errr, no forget that.  Just think of the superstitious, cowardly bit.  There is no disguise.

Doctors are so superstitious that they do. Not. Ever. Use. The word. Quiet.  It's never a quiet day.  It's never quiet in here.  Even patients aren't allowed to say these things.  People will be quickly corrected.  It is in fact "steady", "ok", "not too bad", or (for the extremely bold or naive) "a bit slow".  Everyone knows that saying it is quiet invites the attention of the Gods, who will smite you most unjustly and spitefully.

Yet some things, when examined with the might and majesty of science, turn out to be not superstitions but cold hard facts.  Take, for example, the observation that when the nurses are hard to find, it means that the shit is about to hit the fan. After lengthy investigation I have determined that this is true, a truth that shines brighter than the sun, casting shadows on our minds so we knowest it even while our backs are turned from the light.

Sorry, got a bit florid there,

The facts are these.  Nurses, with their superior sense of hearing and touch, are able to sense the low-frequency vibrations caused by distant shit hitting the fan.  As the shit and the fan grow closer, the nurses become agitated and distressed, and will find ways to escape the impending disaster.

For example, today I saw a herd of fifty nurses galloping wildly in circles, biting and kicking at each other in dismay, before they suddenly veered away and plunged off a great precipice to fall hundreds of metres into an icy mountain river and were swept onward to the sea.  Soon afterwards, a busload of bespectacled teenage girls who were unable to weight bear on their mildly sprained ankles presented to triage.  With their mothers.

Another anecdote, if I may, for while the plural of anecdote may not be data, it certainly is "blog":

Last year, I myself witnessed a dozen nurses leaping above the water of their pond, shaking their golden tails in the sunlight.  Very soon, they were all lying helplessly on the bank of the pond, their scales glittering while their gills gaped and flapped as they slowly suffocated in their thirst for oxygen.  I stood above them and sang an old Scottish dirge but kept my sextant ready.  Sure enough, soon it was reported that there was no more instant coffee in the break room, and it was the weekend so the cafe was shut.

As you can see, even seemingly inexplicable occurrences have their origins in physicks.  The modern man of science must eschew superstition in all its forms if we are to struggle up beyond this primal muck in which we wallow.

I'm Bat-Man!