Things Mikka is no longer allowed to do

In 1995 a US specialist called Skippy (“Specialist Schwarz” in real life) published his 213 things he was no longer allowed to do. That sparked a cottage industry of fake (“200 things Imperial Stormtrooper Mike…”), boring (“35 things Escort Alina…”), and almost as hilarious (“80 things [a teacher] is no longer allowed to do”) of clones.

In 1998 I published my list. That one was (luckily) swallowed by the Internet Memoryhole and won’t haunt me ever again. But there’s another one, grown since 2008. And that one, unfortunately, is not gone. So I figure I might as well own it…

All of those things happened or were suggested by me and shut down. I was never fired for any of those, but I did get some good talking-tos. They didn’t all happen in the same place, but thanks to the miracle of a tightly interwoven health care system, my reputation seems to follow me and, quite often, I am getting the “talk” before I even do anything.

I am a good medic. I know my craft and I won’t ever jeopardize a patient’s life for a joke. But our work is often hard, long, and never really a happy place. Those things are attempts at lightening the mood a little, provide levity to hard working, burned out, in danger of self-harm and self-destructive behavior, medics.

The Things:

  1. I am not allowed to use the University Emergency Broadcast System to play “Staying Alive” during a CPR class for incoming medical students.
  2. “Would you like fries with that?” is not one of the questions in the standard “Mental Clarity Inventory” for incoming head trauma patients.
  3. “Bathsit Crazy” is not a codeable medical diagnosis.
  4. “Uses Facebook as a dating site” isn’t either.
  5. I am Mikka, not “The Ghost who denies” (Goethe, Faust I, 1338 ff. / Mephistopheles)
  6. “Black Magic” is not a differential diagnosis for runny diarrhea
  7. “Thus it is said, thus shall it be” is not a justification for changing prescriptions without checking back with the prescribing physician.
  8. When asked what my goals for the day are, I will no longer exclaim “make the nurses question the very fabric of reality itself.”
  9. I am not to ever insert a “ignore whiny psychiatrists” node in the resus agorithm.
  10. “He’s a surgeon, not a physician” might upset the surgeons.
  11. I am not allowed to wear a tinfoil hat at work
  12. Just because we have a blow up Christmas tree does not mean I can put a blow up sheep and blow up “Maria” next to it.
  13. “The power of Christ compels you” is not a proper way to enter the room of a person suffering from drug induced psychosis.
  14. I am not the unofficial spokesperson of the “Federation of Bearded Medics” and am not allowed to tell newspaper reporters I am.
  15. “I was too drunk” is not a valid excuse why I didn’t submit my hours.
  16. Even though it is not expressively forbidden to eat or drink in the surgical observation gallery, I am not allowed to bring popcorn and provide color commentary in the style of a football match during a vasectomy
    1. Or appendectomy
  17. I am not allowed to bring tree scissors to a patient’s room to “cure his man flu”
  18. Likewise, I am also not medically qualified on the following devices: floor cleaning Zamboni (NO races in the lower floors), weed whacker, lawn mower, leaf blower.
  19. My “personal improvement goals” may no longer include “World Domination” or “Buy Penile Enlargement Pills.”
  20. This is not a democracy, I am not allowed to start a recall elections against our lead attending.
  21. I am not allowed to set beds on fire
    1. Even though there wasn’t a patient in it
    2. Even though there was a resident in it
    3. Even though the resident had a bucket of water (“or piss, I just grabbed it from the store room”)
  22. I am not allowed to transform the physician’s lounge into a Zen Garden
  23. No more writing diagnoses in Klingon
  24. I will not replace the phrase “Start CPR” with “Ambu, I choose you” in our training video.
    1. No, I am not protected in my creative freedoms by my actor’s guild
      1. I am not an actor
  25. I am not allowed to write subversive messages in glow-in-the-dark ink on radiology lab walls.
  26. I am not allowed to make up medication names to confuse primary care providers
  27. I am no longer allowed to assign “Mental Clarity” scores to attending and admins.