gee, doctors get all the fun

My cousin, a medical student, told me rather an amusing story the other day. At least, it's amusing to be TOLD the story. I don't think I'd have wanted to actually be taking a part in it.

He'd been doing a stint as an intern on a reservation up in Washington State. Things were pretty quiet most of the time....he was there with a retired doctor who sort of supervised things, and duties were pretty much limited to dispensing antibiotics for the odd cold and such.

But one day a pregnant woman came in. She was there alone--her husband was on duty with the army or something like that--and she was having labor pains. And alas, the older doctor supervising my young cousin had not performed a birth in some twenty years. My cousin, of course, was clueless, having only just completed his coursework...indeed, this stint out on the reservation was supposed to get him a little hands-on training.

So the two of them left the woman in her delivery room, nodding wisely to themselves in order to convey their mastery of the situation, and then scurried into the in-house library to do a little research on what it is one DOES when delivering a baby.

The first thing you do, apparently, is determine whether the woman really is in labor or not. And unfortunately there were no how-to books jumping out at them in their modest library.

So the retired doctor said he'd just do it the way he remembered:

Which was to do a rectal exam.

Of course, any sensible person will now be shouting, "A RECTAL? What can you possibly find out about a baby from a RECTAL?"

But my cousin was hardly about to argue with a doctor so much more experienced than himself, so there it was.

And so they began.

And the woman, her face modestly hidden behind the sheet draped over her knees, announced, "You've got the wrong hole."

As in, you fools.

Well, somehow they determined her labor was false, and they sent her home. They heard afterward, though, that later that evening the woman really did go into labor. And instead of returning to their clueless selves, she decided to drive herself three hours to the nearest city, where she could be attended by some real doctors.

Well, really.