Southern Humorists - Humor by Don Stewart

It was Christmas Eve in the ER. (Technically, it was now the ED, since there was more than one room involved, and Emergency Department looked better on the hospital’s administrative chart and promotional literature. Subsequent confusion between the Department’s abbreviated title and the similarly derived term Erectile Dysfunction had yet to emerge in the popular culture.) Since nobody with any seniority would think of working on the night before Christmas, only interns and a couple of exhausted chief residents were left to staff the ER in this world famous Midwestern medical center.

Enter one condescending middle-aged woman, expensively attired and coiffed in full seasonal regalia, with a teenager of similar raiment and disposition in tow. The teen was holding a Kleenex to her lip, and appeared to have been crying – the etiology of which (pain, anxiety, embarrassment or simply boredom) could not be immediately determined.

A careful history (provided exclusively by the mother) revealed that the patient had suffered an accidental bite from Mummy’s precious lap dog (a teacup something derived from one part Pekingese and two parts Poodle – a combination that prompted the ER staff to speculate endlessly on the colloquial variations of “Peek-a-Poo-Poo”), sustained during a round of Christmas kisses with the energetic, but apparently not universally affectionate pooch.

Physical exam revealed a potentially pleasant 16 year old Caucasian female in minimal distress, who was persuaded to reveal a 3mm straight line laceration to the upper lip, perpendicular to and precisely traversing the lip’s edge. That singular physical finding, according to the hospital’s treatment protocol, meant that a consultation to the Plastic Surgery service was mandatory.

Mother was visibly and vocally relieved by this policy, forbidding that her daughter be ham-handled by some ignorant general surgeon, and demanding to speak immediately to the plastic surgeon on call. Since I had rotated onto that service a day or two previously, and since it was after 5 pm on Christmas Eve, I was the “expert” who answered the consult.

Six months out of medical school, and still barely able to locate the working end of a pair of forceps, I was the last person to be given responsibility for anything more complex than copying down an order for Tylenol. The Chief Resident in the ER, just weeks away from finishing his training in plastics, grinned wryly as he handed me the girl’s chart, happy to be relieved of the patient’s matriarchal burden.

“Hello”, I said, entering the exam room (barely suppressing a smile of my own). “I’m with plastic surgery. What seems to be the problem?” Fortunately, I was able to tune Mother out for just long enough to anesthetize the area, place a single hair-thin suture, and apply a dollop of antibiotic ointment (which matched the girl’s fashionable lip gloss, minus the sparkles).

“Will there be a scar?” Mother asked. “Of course,” I replied, parroting a physician I overheard once in med school. “My job is simply to make it as small as possible.”

“Thank God,” Mother sighed, melodramatically. “I knew I was right to demand a specialist!”