Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Dr. Orthochick: Farts

Dr. Calm: Did you notice that when I asked [our patient] to lie on her right side she farted?

Me: Yeah...I did notice that, actually.

Dr. Calm: And she didn't even excuse herself! She just kept right on talking! I guess she was hoping we wouldn't notice.

We noticed.

Speaking of which, I find it necessary to confess that one time when I was on my SICU rotation (November of my MS3 year) I farted in a coma patient's room and blamed it on him. I thought I was alone and the dude was all vented and sedated and everything so I didn't think he'd mind and then my resident walked into the room 2 seconds later and asked what the smell was. I said it was probably the patient. I wonder if he believed me. I really hope he did. I mean, I'm not totally sure if coma patients can fart, I'm guessing they can since they can have bowel movements and generally the two go together but I actually have no idea, now that I think about it.

6 comments:

  1. On a sicu rotation as a ms4 I was presenting a patient and mentioned they had a bowel movement when the nurse rolled them onto their side. As I was picturing it in my head I couldn't stop laughing and held up rounds for a couple minutes.

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  2. One of the best parts of doing autopsies all day: free reign for the bowels. Compared to autopsy smell, a fart isn't too bad.

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  3. LMAO ... Silly people tricks are for KIDS (or is for anyone that works in the medical arena)

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  4. One of the perks of working in a hospital... there's always a patient to blame when you let one out!

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  5. Take heart, nurses do it all the time.

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  6. If you work in a hospital, you've done this.

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