Someone asked me to tell a story about an embarrassing moment in my career. This is just one of them.
During medical school, I did a trauma rotation at a regional trauma center. One of the surgeons was kind of a crotchety old woman who made readily evident her opinion that women are beings far superior to men. Every day she did rounds we’d hear some quip about how women heal quicker, need less pain medicine, complain less, et-cetera, et-cetera, and so on. It tended to get on one’s nerves by the end of the rotation. You couldn’t say anything to tick her off, either, because she was known to fail students on their trauma rotations. Then you had to do another rotation at another hospital during your vacation month which royally sucked.
During rounds on my final week of the trauma rotation, we did rounds with Dr. She-God.
One of the patients that was being treated by our trauma team was a woman in her 70′s who was involved in a motor vehicle accident. One of the other residents on my team gave the history:
“This is a 71 year old female who was an unrestrained driver near a cemetery when she lost control of the car …”
Yeah yeah yeah. I’m trying to stay awake here. I’ve been up all night. Speed it up a little, will you?
“The patient swerved off the road, went through a ditch, into the cemetery, took out about a half dozen tombstones, then ran into a tree. Paramedics said that it looked like she never took her foot off the gas pedal. The impact with all these objects caused several fractures including her shoulder, her collarbone, a few ribs, and her ankle. She also has a partially collapsed lung. Her face hit the steering wheel causing a laceration and hematoma to the forehead, a fracture of the maxilla, and significant bruising about her eye.”
There’s no question that the patient had a will to live. She didn’t have a cell phone and no one was around. So she got out of the car and limped half a mile down the road with a broken ankle to the nearest home and knocked on the door.
I was already slaphappy after being up all night on call, so I started giggling thinking about what the person who answered the door must have been thinking. You live next to a cemetery. It’s the middle of the night. You answer a knock on the door and open it up to find some bloody moaning old lady with a swollen face standing there. Straight out of a Wes Craven film. I would never live next to a cemetery just for that reason.
Dr. She-God caught me giggling out of the corner of her eye and shot me a scowl.
“Something funny about this, Dr. WhiteCoat?”
“No, ma’am [cough cough], just had a piece of muffin stuck in my throat. No problem at all. Sorry.”
Dr. She-God took that as her cue to once again describe the superiority of the female species.
“This brave woman drove off the road, sustained multiple injuries, and walked a half mile with a collapsed lung and a broken ankle to get help. Ladies and gentlemen, this is proof that women have perseverance.”
I started giggling again. I elbowed the resident standing next to me and whispered “No … it proves that women can’t drive.”
Dickhead resident (who was probably lacking a Y chromosome) promptly started laughing out loud and threw me under the bus. “Bwaaaahahahaha. It proves that women can’t drive! Bwaaaahahahaha. WhiteCoat, that’s funny.” The whole trauma team then started cracking up in the middle of the ICU.
I was mortified. I already had purchased plane tickets for my vacation. I was so screwed.
I hesitantly looked at Dr. She-God out of the corner of my eye. She had a smirk on her face.
OK. Good sign … I think. I turned to face her, put on the most “innocent” face I could muster, and shrugged my shoulders. Dr. She-God was blushing and holding back a laugh.
“Cute, WhiteCoat … Cute.” She walked away shaking her head.
Fortunately, it wasn’t cute enough to make me miss my vacation month.
Aruba was a blast.
And if I ever run across that resident … let’s just say there will be another prologue post about this little moment.
Funny story WC.
Sounds like you got her on a good day.
I’d never want to live by a cemetery either. I know they’re not really there, but still creepy. Active imagination and all.
Proves that even the crotchety old broads have a funny bone. My father grew up two doors up from a mausoleum. You wouldn’t believe the stories…..
Women can’t drive and white men can’t dance. Great story. The “butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth” approach works everytime.
Eh … it’s still sexist.
When I was fifteen, the first time I got behind the wheel, my dad said, “Now, the first thing you need to know is don’t drive like a woman.” I was like “But how can I do that because I am a woman and any way I drive is therefore how a woman drives” and then I only got to drive like five yards.
That is not sexist, get over it. There is plenty of male bashing on most TV commercials, you do not see men getting butthurt.
There is always going to be teasing between the sexes, that is all it is, teasing.
Guess nobody here is a Car Talk fan. “Don’t drive like my brother,”.indeed!