Comedy Crusaders

Friday morning handover round.
08h00.
Our team ( The A-team) is handing over the numerous patients we've spent the last night seeing, to the new team coming on for the day.

Dr MB begins one of his patient presentations. The patient is curled up under one of the government issue blue hospital blankets in the fetal position.

Dr MB: "This patient is a 28 year old lady admitted at 06h00 this morning for strange behaviour. She was brought in by her colleagues for bizarre delusions. She believes that she is a doctor and that she is at the hospital to help people get better. She is not a known psychiatric patient but currently displays signs of mania, psychomotor agitation and formal thought disorder..."

The consultant leading the round, Dr G, then decided to wake the patient, and moved over to the head of the bed. She lifted the blue blanket to reveal....

MY very own pretty little face giggling hysterically from beneath the covers.

I was so dog-tired after our long shift that while the rest of my team were busy presenting and discussing another patient, and with no further patients of my own to present, I decided to climb into one of the empty patient beds and rest my weary head. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do at the time.

Which is when Dr MB and I came up with the idea of presenting me as a patient on the ward round.

Luckily Dr G was a young, newly qualified emergency medicine consultant with a sense of humour. She laughed heartily , and then shook her finger at me for being crazy enough to risk catching patient germs in aid of a little comedy...

She doesn't understand the lengths we are prepared to go to for a laugh in this place.

Doesn't she know that every shift is a war between patients and our sanity?

Nonsensical frivolity is sometimes the only defence against impending work induced depression and despair.

Our next practical joke will involve elaborate co-operation from the nursing staff and fellow colleagues. We are planning on bandaging up my head just before the new team arrive at 08h00 for the next handover, and then shocking them with the story that I had been stabbed in the head by a psych patient and had to have my lacerated scalp sutured up and then bandaged.

I think we'll be able to pull this one off.

I am 100 percent certain that the new team will actually fall for it.

After all, similar incidents have actually happened in the past.

Voltaire said that the purpose of the doctor is to entertain the patient as the disease takes its course.

Hopefully, as a defence mechanism against depression and like some kind of comedy crusade, we'll always be able to entertain each other while our shifts run their course.

:)

Money Hungry ( Human ATM)

Hello. I just got back from gym. Random. But just thought I'd let you in on the fact that I gym.

So I'm guessing none of you know what the yellow drip is yet. Too bad. I'm not telling.

I will tell you this though; that a frantic mom rushed into the unit the other day, dragging her breathless ten year old behind her.

The ten year old was choking.

I kind of had my hands full with an epileptic fitter.

But Sister B wasn't worried.

Her well-practiced and experienced hand suddenly popped out of nowhere and violently smacked the centre of his back.

The unsuspecting child instantly coughed up a five rand coin.

The mom, completely confused with relief, then smacked her child again presumably to teach him a lesson.

"That was our taxi money!" She screamed at him. She then fished the five rand coin out of it's phlegmy pond on the floor, turned on her heel and marched him out of the unit refusing to waste any more time.

Everyone just shrugged their shoulders and carried on with their duties. Nothing unusual about that, just another normal occurrence in the trauma unit.

I must say that I secretly wished I could give birth to a child that would produce money every time I smacked it. Like a human ATM.

That kid would be black and blue by the time it was five.

p.s. my sister wants me to say that she was the one who "coined" the "money hungry" title for this post. Thanks sis.

coMEDIC. (get it?)

In the last hour of our shift yesterday I tried to make things FUN! for the poor peoples and their childrens who had been waiting so long to see me.Fun fun fun! I must have been delirious after twelve hours of non-stop work.

There were a few X-ray waiting to be reviewed that belonged to patients with possible fractures.

I picked up the first folder and was about to put the X-ray film up on the lightbox...X-ray FILM...!!! Suddenly I had a bright idea

I went out to the waiting room and called for the owner of the X-ray.

"Would Mrs XYZ please be so kind as to join me at the premiere of her right leg's debut show?"

Mrs XYZ looked at me like I was on crack, but said nothing, as I wheeled her into our unit.

I positioned her nicely in front of the lightbox and began the show.

"As you can see madam, I have procured fantastic front row seats for you to this spectacular moment in your right leg's history. The title of this show, 'Does Mrs XYZ have a broken tibia?' "

I hummed the theme tune to 20th Century Fox as I placed the radiograph on the lightbox.


Her tibia was completely intact.


"Oh dear Mrs XYZ, " I said, ( her face fell, expecting bad news)

"Unfortunately this is a very boring movie as your bone is not actually broken! Hoorah!"

Mrs XYZ didn't get it and was looking around the unit nervously for someone normal to explain to her whether her bone was broken or not.

I thought I was being awesome. The patient thought I needed admission to the psych ward. Oh well. Seems I failed at bringing joy and laughter into the unit. Turns out it wasn't that hilarious. Clearly I need to work on my material.


:)