What's Up With That?

by Tom Kuzeja - March 10, 1999

What's Up With That?

Have Scrubs Will Travel

I recently spent a few days in the hospital... Ego-reduction surgery. It went well. Anyway, at some point I got very bored with my surroundings and decided that I'd have a look around.

Contrary to what we've been brought up to believe, most hospital staff members are pretty easy going and relaxed. If you look like you know what you're doing, you can just do it. It doesn't take much time roaming in the hallways before you can score a pair of surgical scrubs from some linen cart or closet. The masks aren't hard to find either. Once you've got these things, you're 95% of the way to your "I can go anywhere" hospital pass. You'll need an ID card and a stethoscope (once again, the spell checker has saved my sorry butt here because I don't think I could spell "stethoscope" to save my life... the notion that I would ever need to spell "stethoscope" in order to save my life seems ludicrous. In any event, I am sure that you by now have correctly interpreted this digression as a thinly veiled attempt at procrastinating because my mind is blank and I can't seem to finish this article.) One easy way to get an ID and stethoscope is to stand about 50 feet from the nurses station and yell, "Oh my God, it's George Clooney formerly of NBC's Thursday Night Hit Drama Series, ER!" This usually results in nurses clawing each other out of the way. ID tags and stethoscopes usually block a nurse's cleavage from view so these items are readily cast aside.

I did something along the line of what I just described and got my full hospital pass ticket. Sure my ID tag said Victoria Smith but no one seemed to mind as I conducted rounds. Again, I thought this would be difficult to do but it wasn't. I hardly had to order any IV's because everyone seemed to be on one. I would usually mutter something about getting a CBC and chest film and starting a D5W drip with ringers lactate... you know, stat. No sweat. The nurses do all the work anyway. It's like they're the Mommies who check your math homework over before you submit it. If you are ever stumped, move a patient from a gurney to a bed or vice versa and in a commanding voice say "On my mark people... c'mon lets move it! One... two...three!" And make sure you have nurses helping because I did this one time to someone in traction and had three of his elderly aunts helping me lift him. After they all crashed to the floor, I left that room stat! Of course I administered IV's and took some chest films and a CBC before I left.

By the end of the day, I had discharged 23 patients and collected 32 stethoscopes. I was this close to a portable CT Scanner when nurse Victoria Smith caught up with me. 48 Hours and 16 barium enemas later they let me go. Yes I was a little embarrassed but now I'm clean as a whistle.

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