What’s in a Name?

Steven McFall was a 27-year-old man who slipped when he was climbing out of the swimming pool. He went down, hit his forehead on the edge of the pool and suffered a six-inch laceration down to the bone. It took quite a while to carefully stitch him back together. He will have a scar as a souvenir for the rest of his life but otherwise will be fine. I had a hard time not giving him a bad time about the irony of McFall taking a fall.

I had a patient this week named Sally Smurphat. A reasonable question for you to ask would be, “Was she blue?” The answer: “Yes!”

She was a morbidly obese lady who could not keep the air moving in and out of her lungs. She had confusion and muscle twitching caused by the lack of oxygen and build up of carbon dioxide in her body. I had to pass a tube into her windpipe, put her on a ventilator and send her to intensive care. I was going to ask how Father Smurph and all the other Smurphs were doing but she was unable to answer questions.