Covered in secrecy

The first time I worked in the OR way back in first year, the biggest adjustment I had to make was to get used to the masks. They're not very comfortable things to wear, fogging up glasses and making you rebreathe the warm humid air you just exhaled, generally making an excellent nuisance. They also prevented me from hearing people properly. I didn't realize how much I relied on lip reading to help me when people aren't speaking loud enough to be heard above the sounds of bonesaws and suction. The surgeon I worked with was a big Nigerian man with an odd accent, and without the benefit of watching him speak, I couldn't make out a single word he said.

Of course, with time, I learned to understand his accent eventually arriving at the point where I wondered how I ever could have had trouble understanding him. After a little while, I also began to learn to understand the mask.

Doctors pride themselves on a lot of things, one of which I'm sure is being funny. This, however, is not the case (see Stitches, the medical "humor" magazine. Any sentence, any picture, any page, any issue EVER. I challenge you to find an iota of funny in there. Stop sending articles.) Lots of lame jokes are cracked, some of which I just don't feel like faking laughter at. Hiding behind a mask, I don't have to smile. All I have to do is squint my eyes like I'm smiling and everyone thinks I enjoyed hearing the one about cheetahs never winning races. In secret though, my squinting eyes really say "I loathe your joking. Stop contributing to Stitches."

God that magazine is terrible. It's like Family Circus for doctors.

Another important aspect of the mask is that you can stuff it full of tasty smelling things. That way, when that tireyard employee who vomited up feces mixed with his last meal of burnt hair shows up in the OR, you can smell Calvin Klein's Obsession, rosemary and thyme, or whatever. Me, I soak it in Cheetos crumbs. That way I can also have a snack without anyone knowing if I get hungry, in addition to smelling hydrogenated oil, natural and artifical flavors, and coloring additive #43 all day.

The most useful part of masks is the emotional one I don when I meet patients. I do listen a lot, and try to stay attentive to their issues and problems. At the end of the day though, I have to go home and deal with my own life. I don't know how I'd do it with all the baggage I'd accumulate if I didn't maintain some kind of barrier between me and the patient. Really, I'm surprised psychiatrists don't go home and almost kill themselves everyday. Whatever Patch Adams said was a wad of garbage. Staying emotionally detached isn't something I do because I'll make better decisions for the patient. I stay emotionally detached because I'll go crazy otherwise. Crazy enough to start submitting articles to Stitches.