Um, my brother wants to be. . .

Whew, dusting off the old keyboard here. Been a while. But I had to share, this was too ridiculous. 4:30 this morning. I was on call for General Surgery (and Pedi Surgery and Vascular Surgery and Trauma and ENT). Other than a vascular patient who decided she wanted to try to die and hemorrhage on us (she's as okay as she can be, at least not bleeding like a stuck pig anymore) it was a pretty quiet nite. One of the joys of being the junior Surgery resident on call is that you have the glory and honor of having all outside phone calls that want to talk to a Surgeon directed to you. You get a page that starts with 333** with two other numbers (the **), and when you call back, you are connected to the caller. This is usually either MDs from other hospitals calling to transfer someone to us (because they are too complicated, the patient that is, or because they are too lazy, the MD that is), or previous surgery patients who have a question about something. These calls can be a real pain. So, the pager goes off. 333**. Outside call. My guess is, at this time, a sick person has shown up at another hospital and they want to send them our way. I dial the number, hear the beep that tells me we are connected. "Hello, this is PJ with Surgery." "Um, yeah, my brother, well, he wants to be a woman." Silence. "Do you do that surgery?" "No. No, we don't do that surgery. General Surgery isn't even the right person to call for gender reassignment surgery." "Well, can I talk to the person who does it?" "No, no one here does it." "Um, can you give me the number of someone who does?" "No." Click. This has to be a prank. No one in their right mind, lest anyone who actually is considering gender reassignment, is going to have their drunk sounding brother call at 4:30 in the morning. My money is on one of the other Surgery residents who are on research this year and have the time to pull a lame prank like this. Needless to say, it made a fun story to tell the other residents this morning. What a classic line. "Um, my brother wants to be a woman." Priceless.