VII

Do you know the medical definition of a tough guy? If not, today you will meet some real ones ...;)

I remembered my nice student years. After some year I had an internship, also known as an apprenticeship in hard surgery (also known as trauma-orthopedic surgery), where there were many broken members, also of the then PZPR (I wonder how many fighters still remember this).

As some big boss was about to be operated on, so two competing for the primacy prepared for the operation of the hip joint and the fracture of the neck of the femur (by the way: the injury was reportedly caused during one party congress there, so they had to refuel well). the handyman "docents. Each of them, of course, preferred a different technique, a different approach, a different school of surgery, and they only agreed that the skin had to be disinfected before the first cut.

Of course, none of the permanent residents wanted to climb onto the third member of the operating team (what is held by the so-called hooks - i.e. tools for opening wounds), because it was compared to voluntarily walking between a hammer and an anvil. So it was a student, in my person, who could not refuse two associate professors.

After half an hour of surgery, I was heartily fed up, and all the time I was whispering Hail Marys with a common intention: stop, gentlemen, because I am going to end. They alternately moved me one time, the other time, because once I covered something, I put my hand wrong on another, I held that artery again, and when I moved my arm I was hit with a vise. All kinds of dynamisers were flying at my address every now and then, and after getting to the essence of the operational problem, the gentlemen also began to lecture each other, not mincing words.

Eventually, when they finally started to open the door, one insisted on doing it with one rather large but bulky-looking surgical chisel, the other preferred his own. In the end, the rigid organ failed, so the second associate professor, with an expression of triumph behind the surgical mask, put his hand in and did what he needed to do in a few seconds. Satisfied with himself, he announced his victory to his rival with the words:

- You see! It's not the size, it's the technique!

On every second address to me:

- Look, another one with a little dick complex .. ah !!

* * * * *

Rotating from time to time, each doctor becomes a consultant, i.e. simply goes to a ward with a different profile to share his knowledge with the locals. It was within this function that I was taken to gynecology today, where a roaring sixty weighing a middle sperm whale was about to undergo some "female" cosmetic surgery. Since she suffered from several interesting heart diseases, together with the anesthesiologist we decided that we would not put grandma to sleep until the procedure, but anesthetize her, as the layman says "from the belly button down".

As the anesthesiologist was young and the sperm whale had strange pressure surges, he asked me (you probably know me from my soft heart) to stay with him at least for the first several minutes of the procedure.

Prepared, you lie in a horizontal, unfolded position. The operating team is ready, the nurses have laid out all the tools for cutting, opening, sewing and cutting and ... .. only the main operator, in the person of the head of the ward, is missing.

After a few minutes of waiting, someone brought the news that the head of the hospital had been urgently called to the hospital manager regarding the ward's debts and that he had ordered them to wait.

So we are waiting, entertaining ourselves and the sperm whale with a conversation.

After almost half an hour, the sick head physician finally shows up and, thinking that the patient was asleep in the doorway, says:

- "Not only will we go bankrupt because of this fucking health fund, but I also have to look at this old greasy pipe and mess with it !!! arrange ?? "

In the ensuing silence, the patient raised her head slightly and looked the head of the physician deep in the eyes.

The chief physician turned back and left the room. After half an hour the deputy came and we were finally able to start the procedure.

* * * * *

As you know, tough guys go to medical studies. Those who do not faint at the sight of blood, do not let the "writer" see various human excrements, and the sight of the corpse (or even its fragmented parts) does not make the slightest impression on them. The same applies to smells, of course - such a pleasant smell of human urine is nothing compared to, for example, the smell of a few days (in the case of a deceased) bile mixed with other body fluids (e.g. inflammatory exudate).

During one year of studies, we had the undoubted pleasure of going to the operating theater as part of practical classes, where minor procedures were performed, such as taking tissue fragments for laboratory tests. Often, if the material was scarce and it could be withdrawn with a larger / thicker syringe, the patient was anesthetized either locally or for a short time in general.

One of these biopsies was taken by an assistant who happened to be with us. In a small room measuring 4 by 4 meters, around the table on which the patient was placed, the following group was crowded: a doctor, an instrumentalist, a nurse, an assistant and five students. As you can guess, the air began to be lacking under normal conditions, and here, in addition, there were various additional medical aromas. Of course, everyone is wearing sterile clothes, the room is closed for hygienic and epidemiological reasons or any other reasons. In a word - murder.

The doctor efficiently anesthetized the patient, and then, after finding out that there was no contact with the above-mentioned, he began to insert a needle the size of a large nail into the patient's iliac plate. When "entering" the medullary cavity of the iliac plate, a characteristic "crunch" occurs - it was also the case here, but the patient instinctively kicked his leg slightly, knocking over the anesthetic bottle standing on the treatment table. As everyone was staring at the doctor and his huge needle half stuck in the patient's hip, no one paid any attention to this little detail. So the anesthetic began to evaporate without any obstacles into the stuffy atmosphere of the treatment ... ..

Very quickly all of them developed a feeling of weakness, slight nausea, weakness in the legs or dizziness. Well, medicine is all tough guys after all, so no one said anything, but suffered in silence. The colleague leaned lightly on the nurse as if he wanted to see the needle from a closer distance. Everyone leaned on what they could and, praying in their eyes, watched the doctor's progress. And the doctor also seemed to suddenly start rushing, thick sweat beaded on his forehead and his hands tremble ... but it looks like he passed out in the presence of students with such a simple biopsy !! They're tough guys in medicine !! So he pushed his feet down on the table and pressed harder… it crunched a second time.

The buddy and the nurse were the first to collapse on the table, slightly dazed by the already well-anesthetized team. A second later, two of my colleagues quietly slumped against the walls. I let go of my humble peacock and rolled down under the table. Only then did the doctor notice that something was wrong and shouted "Walk !!"

Didin't make it. He took one single step when the law of universal gravity also caught up with him. Everyone started a crazy race to the door (two meters, but still), which nobody finished. A silent mass of sweetly snoring bodies remained in the room ...

I was awakened by a scream coming from a veeeeery far distance. With a head heavy as after a three-day party, I was able to locate the source in the form of a patient who, when he first woke up, expressed his dissatisfaction with the nail-like needle still stuck in his hip. Fortunately, the scream was heard outside of the procedure and a moment later all the "bodies" were taken out into the corridor. Tough guys themselves, of course.