i wasn't going to link it out of respect to patient confidentiality and the troubles he had with his last blog, but it's too good to not. a good friend of tommy's and mine from college who must be close to being a real doctor by now (how does all that stuff work? surprisingly, my intake of scrubs and grey's anatomy has not really educated me on that whole process) is blogging again, and it's great. who else could write so hysterically on rectal exams? not me!

Perhaps the largest apology I owe is to the numerous people I have rectalized over the past two weeks. You know who you are. Even more deserving of my guilt are those I had to perform multiple rectal exams on because of errors I made in the initial process. To the woman with a history of gastric ulcer who presented with melena, I'm sorry I didn't go deep enough the first time. To the nursing home paraplegic patient with colitis, I'm sorry that I accidentally smeared the sample on the wrong side of the guaiac card. To the young man with a Dieulafoy's ulcer, I'm sorry I failed to realize that there were no cards in the room until after I performed the exam. And to myself, I'm sorry that I took off my glove prematurely after my very first exam, and was holding the guaiac card in my bare hands asking an attending to confirm the negative result before he pointed out to me that I should wash my hands twenty times over. Again, that's disgusting. Additionally, I apologize for the fact that I can never remain completely silent during a rectal exam and instead either make an incredibly awkward comment ("This is why I became a doctor" or "This is less fun for me than it is for you") or make oochy-ouchy noises reminiscent of everyone's favorite gynecological surgeon.