It’s weird: Many of us, when asked, will say that we don’t fully trust the medical community. But then we’ll go in for a procedure and lay there, unconscious, while the medical community roots around in there doing who knows what. I mean, the paperwork we signed beforehand said what, but no one’s actually watching. Maybe they put you to sleep so you don’t see the doctors frantically googling things.
I think it’s possible that we don’t fully trust them because of all their rules. The medical community has a lot of rules, and not all the rules seem to make sense, at least to us. And nowhere are there more rules than in hospitals.
For example, “No running in the halls. Unless you’re on staff.”
In recent years, both my wife and I have had medical procedures at various points—nothing serious, but I mean no one goes in for fun. And all the rules don’t help. I feel like if hospitals were smart, they would just remove all their rules, and it would drive up business like crazy. But whatever; it’s not my place to tell them. It’s my place to tell you. So here are some of the rules we spent the entire time wondering about:
No personal effects.
You get a corner of a hallway with a bed and a curtain around it, and you have to get ready in there. The hospitals are not very big on privacy; they’re very big on curtains. They’re like, “If it works for basement shuls, it’s good enough for us!” Then they give you a smaller curtain to use as an outfit.
“One size fits all.”
But it’s not just the gowns; we have to take absolutely everything off. Socks included. They give you grippy socks, in case you go to a trampoline place later. Because when you’re lying on an operating table, unconscious, you need grippy socks. Where are you walking, exactly?
Maybe it’s just to make sure you change your socks at all so they’re not in the operating room wondering if they cut a valve
They also give you those hairnet things, so your hair doesn’t get in your open chest cavity or whatever. But it has to be a hospital-mandated hairnet. If you are a woman, for example, you cannot wear a tichel. Even underneath. When my wife went in, they said, “You have to take off your tichel,” so she said, “Well, can I have like five hairnets, then?” And they gave them to her. You can’t wear one snood, but you can wear five hairnets. That’s how many it took to make it not see-through.
They don’t want anything. I had an operation on my toe a few years back, and they said, “You have to take off your watch.” I said, “Are you coming in through my wrist to get to my toe?”
Maybe they don’t want any distractions. They’re going to be in the middle of operating, up to a really delicate part that needs absolute concentration, and your watch alarm is going to go off.
“Yeah, this is when I normally daven Mincha.”
So maybe watches make sense. Also, a watch can snag on the doctor, I presume, because I know when I work in the kitchen, I keep snagging my pants pockets on the drawer handles, so I can only imagine how many times this happened before the doctors said, “Can we just get rid of the watches?” And that way, they can put on your ID tag. Which is snag proof, apparently.
No eating after midnight the night before surgery.
I don’t know if this is true before all operations, but fasting the day of a surgery does make some kind of sense, from a religious perspective.
The hospital said, “Don’t eat after midnight,” and then my wife read the instructions they sent, which said, “Don’t eat for eight hours before the surgery,” and the surgery was scheduled for noon. So she asked, “Well, is it midnight or eight hours?” And they said, “Really it’s eight hours, but we tell everyone to start at midnight because people don’t know how to do math.”
Well, do any of these people routinely count six hours between meat and dairy?
We’re going to keep coming in.
They also have this policy where everyone who works in the hospital has to come into your pre-op area, one at a time, to introduce themselves and give you a rundown of what they do for a living and also make sure the information on your wrist is correct. That’s the first thing they ask.
They have to check the same info 100 times in case it has changed. What’s going to change? Have you ever come in after the other six doctors and gone, “Whoa, that’s way off! No one caught this?”
I mean, sure, it’s important that the information on your wrist is correct, so they don’t misplace you, like luggage.
“Where’s my husband?”
Nurse (checking computer): “Chicago.”
And on top of that, you have zero other identifying things on you because they made you take off all your personal effects. You’re going to be sleeping on the operating table, and they’re going to say, “Which patient is this again?” And then they’re going to call in your spouse to identify you, and your spouse is going to say, “I don’t know; I only knew him by his watch.”
Someone has to awkwardly walk you out.
I guess that’s good middos, but you don’t know this person, and it’s just you and your spouse, walking really slowly because one of you just had an operation, and then you have to squeeze into the slowest elevator ever, and make awkward elevator small talk.
“So what’s the weather like? I haven’t been outside since yesterday.”
And then they just abandon you on the curb, as does your spouse so he or she can find the car and circle around and fight the pickup lane while you sit there surrounded by your luggage, like you’re outside an airport where all the incoming passengers are severely jetlagged.
And then you come back to work, and everyone’s like, “How was your vacation?”
Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].
