Lost Thought

Remember ER? It's changed over the years but when it first came out it was fun to play guess-the-disease along with the characters. The way it worked; they would wheel some guy in and give the symptoms, vital signs etc. and then you started guessing his MC, Medical Condition. If you could beat Dr. Green, you won.

I used to guess pneumothorax a lot. An auto accident comes in, I go into diagnosis mode... Sharp chest pain, Ah-ha, this could be it.... Rapid pulse, Bingo! I'm calling a pneumothorax here. By the time they throw in flared nostrils, I'm jumping on the couch and calling, "Damit woman, bring me a chest tube." The wife always swears she doesn't have a chest tube so I call for a meat thermometer, a Bic pen, and a Pez dispenser instead. (I also used to watch a lot of MacGyver) Not sure what MacGyver would do with those things though. I guess you'd just jam the meat thermometer in the guy's chest and sit there eating Pez till the ambulance arrived. Oh yeah, the pen... um, you could write a message for the ambulance attendant on the guy's forehead, "Hey, someone stabbed this guy with a meat thermometer. Please fix him up."