Orthopaedic Humour
Prof Kay's ORTHOPAEDIC JOKE SECTION:-
The following section is a light hearted view of the practice of orthopaedics.
No offence is meant to those suffering from orthopaedic illness nor do any
of the characteristics of orthopaedic surgeons portrayed relate to any or all
orthopaedic surgeons living, dead or in training - .
You may however recognise yourself !
• 3 orthopaedic surgeons took 5 days to do a jig-saw and were proud of their achievement
• when asked why they were so proud they said because it said 3-5 years on the box
• At an orthopaedic meeting how can you spot the academic orthopaedic surgeon?
• He's the one who can just get his knuckles off the floor!
• What's the difference between a carpenter and an orthopaedic surgeon?
• A carpenter knows more than one antibiotic!
• How do you hide a twenty pound note from an orthopaedic surgeon?
• Put it in a text book!
• How do you spot the orthopaedic surgeon's car in the car park?
• It's the porsche with a comic on the back shelf!
• The rule of halves describing an orthopaedic operation
• The half asleep, keeping the half awake, being half butchered by the half witted
• What's the difference between a rhinoceros and an orthopaedic surgeon?
• One's thick-skinned, small-brained and charges a lot for no very good reason....the other's a rhinoceros.
• What do you call two orthopaedic surgeons looking at a chest X-ray?
• A double blind study.
• The definition of shifting dullness - an orthopaedic ward round.
• Why do anaesthetists take an instant dislike to orthopaedic surgeons?
• Because it saves time
• How do you get an Orthopaedic Surgeon to refer you to some one else?
• Ask him the time
• A small group of orthopaedic surgeons have learned that there is more than one antibiotic
• The hospital pharmacy is however not concerned as they can't spell them
• How some Surgeons exaggerate their operative experience:
• One case = "I have vast experience", two cases = "I have done case after case", three cases = "I have an extensive personal series"
• (Theatre staff say) What's the difference between a puppy and an orthopaedic surgeon?
• If you put a puppy in a room it will usually stop whining after an hour
• An orthopaedic surgeon giving evidence told the court he was the best surgeon in the world, The judge objected to such arrogance
• The orthopaedic surgeon pointed out he was under oath and had to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
• What is the difference between God and an Orthopaedic surgeon?
• God does not think he is an Orthopaedic surgeon.
• Why do orthopaedic surgeons insist on wearing 'Surgeons Hoods' in theatre?
• To avoid their heads transluminating.
Things Orthopaedic Surgeons Sometimes Say.
• "We might not make it better but we can sure make it different."
• "If you scrub twice as fast, you only have to scrub half as long"
• "I'd rather be lucky than good"
• "Nothing spoils a good result as quickly as follow-up"
• "This is hard enough to do when it's indicated, let alone on a case like this"
• "I've cut it off twice and it's still too short"
• Which hammer do you use for these screws ?
• "One way to make sure a humerus doesn't heal is to operate on it"
• "Orthopaedics is the specialty of complications"
• The orthopaedic surgeon -- Strong as an ox, and half as bright!
• If you've half a mind to do orthopaedics, you're over-qualified.
• The modern holistic approach to orthopaedics.....you don't JUST treat the fracture, you treat the whole bone!
• An orthopod is someone who can bench-press his own weight and spell cefuroxime.
• Pass the micro adjuster nurse!
• And finally just on more little tap with the hammer and .......
• Just think of the movement at your ankle fusion site as a bonus
• Shortening can be an advantage you know, he won't run off now, he'll just circle around
• It's only a five minute operation sister
• It's much more urgent than any possible general surgical case!
• The heart, a thoracic organ whose primary function is to pump antibiotics around the body.
Important guides to life
• If it doesn't look right it probably isn't
• Don't eat anything bigger than your head
• It can always get worse
• Speak less and say more
• Old age and treachery can always overcome youth and skill
• If you think you are starting to sound important its time to shut up and sit down
• When you get to old to hunt teach a course in how to read buffalo ****.
• If you arrive late for a meeting make up for it by leaving early
The Rough Guide to Health Service Management
Management is a vital part of the health service. The relationship between managers and doctors is often portrayed as one that is difficult, fraught with disagreement and argument. Of course the real reason for such passions lie in the commitment each group has for their ideas of what makes a successful service. Balancing the books, providing stable institutional structures and making sure the patient and their treatment comes first is never easy and they often seem to be incompatible. In the following no offence in meant to individuals in health service management, government departments or my clinical colleagues. Unless we have the ability to look critically at what we do and laugh at it we are doomed. If you think that's difficult try being a medical manager and combine both sides and fall out with yourself!
Poem dedicated to Clinical Directors in Health service management!
Forget about management training - if you do not have all of the
Characteristics described in the following poem you will not
survive being a clinical director.
'If' by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Are you sure you want to be clinical director - try Audit lead instead!
Management Phrase Book - How to understand management
• Challenged
• An unworkable situation leading to utter and complete disaster
• Getting ones ducks in a line
• A delusional state in which there is belief that a disparate group of individuals will all do the right things at the right time.
• Rear Gunning
• Actions taken by a manager to make an unworkable plan seem as if it is working
• Singing from the same hymn sheet
• A paradox where a group of people say the same thing but believe something different (opposite to singing a hymn in fact)
• Write a business case
• Go away and bury your unworkable idea in paper work so it never sees the light of day
• I understand your concerns
• I have no intension of taking your feelings, thoughts or reality into account as it will spoil my plan
• Quality is our first priority
• Its not its cost
• You have lost the confidence of senior management
• You are getting far to clever and effective for management to control go away
• We are in this together
• If you make life difficult for me you will suffer as well
• We will definitely do it next financial year
• Never
• Secondment
• Unemployable somewhere else due to misdemeanour
• Team building exercise
• Last desperate attempt to stop a mutiny
• Performance management
• First stage in constructive dismissal
• Going Native
• Uncomfortable situation it which a manager starts to understand and have sympathy with those they manage
• your skills lie elsewhere
• bug*er off
• Modernisation
• A method of introducing change on the assumption that all new things are better than the old
• I have just written the unit strategy for the next 5 years
• I am about to leave and work somewhere else
• Leave it with me it first on my list of priorities
• Its forgotten
• Incentivisation
• Money or the sack
• Reorganising the deck chairs on the Titanic
• Doomed ineffective and reactive management initiative or restructuring in the face of inevitable overwhelming disaster
• Managing choice
• Allowing every possible choice apart from the one the individual wants
• Having to consume ones own smoke
• A difficult situation in which someone desperately works to hide the fact that their plan is causing not solving problems.
Medical Phrase book for Managers - How to Understand Doctors
• It's a case mix problem
• I am very inefficient but have an unshakable belief that I only do complex work
• Senior Surgeon/Physician
• Some one who does not conform to general normality and is unmanageable
• What about clinical governance
• I don't like your idea and I will block it at every turn
• Training is vital
• The need to have junior staff to make time to play golf
• College business
• Leave without filling in forms
• I intend to retire next year we must appoint a successor
• Lies
• I will raise it at the next consultant meeting
• I intend to bury this once and for all by winding my colleagues up
• All my colleagues agree with the plan I have put forward
• Delusional state like believing it is possible to herd cats
• Going Native
• Sad situation in which a doctor starts to believe he can actually manage people
• I am a orthopaedic super-specialist
• I am not seeing anyone with back pain (unless you are a back specialist then you will only see back pain)
• I am sure we can sort out the waiting list problem together
• Get ready for a long shopping list
• All the consultants are behind you as a manager!
• Watch out for your back
Translating Management Speak
Management Speak: That's very interesting.
Translation: I disagree.
Management Speak: I don't disagree.
Translation: I disagree.
Management Speak: I don't totally disagree with you.
Translation: You may be right, but I don't care.
Management Speak: You have to show some flexibility.
Translation: You have to do it whether you want to or not.
Management Speak: We have an opportunity.
Translation: You have a problem.
Management Speak: You obviously put a lot of work into this.
Translation: This is awful.
Management Speak: In a perfect world.
Translation: Just get it working and get it out the door.
Management Speak: Help me to understand.
Translation: I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't think you do either.
Management Speak: You just don't understand our business.
Translation: We don't understand our business.
Management Speak: You need to see the big picture.
Translation: My boss thinks it's a good idea.
Management Speak: My mind is made up. I am adamant on the subject. There is no room for discussion. But if you do want to discuss it further, my door is always open.
Translation: &%^$ you.
Management Speak: I appreciate your contribution.
Translation: @#%* you!
Management Speak: We're going to follow a strict methodology here.
Translation: We're going to do it my way.
Management Speak: I didn't understand the e-mail you said you sent. Can you give me a quick summary?
Translation: I still can't figure out how to start the e-mail program.
Management Speak: Cost of ownership has become a significant issue in desktop computing.
Translation: We want all of the benefits and none of the costs.
Management Speak: We have to make better use of our resources.
Translation: You're working weekends.
Management Speak: Individual contributor.
Translation: Employee who does real work.
Management Speak: Your project is on hold.
Translation: We've put a bullet in it.
Management Speak: Wrong answer.
Translation: You didn't tell me what I wanted to hear.
Management Speak: You needed to be more proactive.
Translation: You should have protected me from myself.
Management Speak: I'd like your buy-in on this.
Translation: I want someone else to blame when this thing bombs.
Management Speak: We want you to be the executive champion of this project.
Translation: I want to be able to blame you for my mistakes.
Management Speak: We need to involve all the stakeholders in this decision.
Translation: We need to spread the blame if it backfires.
Management Speak: We have to put on our marketing hats.
Translation: We have to put ethics aside.
Management Speak: It's not possible. It's impractical. It won't work.
Translation: I don't know how to do it.
Management Speak: It's a no-brainer.
Translation: It's a perfect decision for me to handle.
Management Speak: I'm glad you asked me that.
Translation: Public relations has written a carefully phrased answer.
Management Speak: I see you involved your peers in developing your proposal.
Translation: One person couldn't possibly come up with something this stupid.
Management Speak: There are larger issues at stake.
Translation: I've made up my mind so don't bother me with the facts.
Management Speak: I'll never lie to you.
Translation: The truth will change frequently.
Management Speak: Our business is going through a paradigm shift.
Translation: We have no idea what we've been doing, but in the future we shall do something completely different.
Management Speak: Value-added.
Translation: Expensive.
Management Speak: Human Resources.
Translation: A bulk commodity, like lentils or cinder blocks.
Management Speak: The upcoming reductions will benefit the vast majority of employees.
Translation: The upcoming reductions will benefit me.
Guide to Senior Medical Staff When Attending Courses
As a delegate only.
• Do not fill in leave forms you are too important to let people know what you are doing
• Don't bother to book, arrive late and be very rude to the young receptionist for not having your details
• Always travel first class and stay in the most expensive hotel it impresses the unit accountant
• Always take a lecture with you even if you are not on the programme, if the organisers have any sense they are bound to ask you to speak.
• Always ask very long questions at the end of every lecture sharing your opinion and expertise with those in the audience it will impress everyone
• Use expressions such as "I have been doing this for years" or "I have tried this and it does not work" to endear yourself to the organisers
• Make comments throughout all the lectures in a loud whisper to others sat around you to show that you know more than the speaker.
• Fall asleep and snore during the keynote lecture to demonstrate you contempt at not being asked to deliver the lecture yourself
• If someone has been invited to give a lecture on one of you areas of expertise leave the lecture hall just after they start speaking as noisily as possible
• At the end of the meeting announce in a loud voice it was the worse meeting you have been to, the faculty was weak and you could have done in much better
As a member of faculty.
• Do not fill in leave forms you are too important to let people know what you are doing
• Make sure you find the most expensive way to get to the meeting - the most expensive faculty member is the most important
• Do not reply to any pre-meeting correspondence it is up to the organising committee to read your mind
• Arrive late in the pre-view room with the most modern but incompatible technology and pour scorn on the outdated equipment provided for the meeting
• Always blame the projectionist and technical staff it makes you look in command
• Make sure that your lecture hopelessly over runs its time slot. The more you overrun the more important you are and the more it will impress the chairman of the session
• If someone asks a deep and probing question about your lecture which undermines your premise treat them with utter contempt and point out they used to be your registrar
• Complain about the accommodation even though you will be only in you room for 4 hours as you will be boring everyone to the early hours with your expertise and importance
• Do not pay for anything it makes you look cheap and unimportant
• At the end of the meeting announce in a loud voice that it is the best meeting you have been to and congratulate the organisers for picking such a strong faculty.