Nurse - 10 cc's of Amusement - STAT!

C'mon. It's just you and me here.

Just me. And you.

Admit it.

Confess - bold-faced or ashamedly- that you have at least once in your life watched "ER".

Maybe you liked the drama. Maybe you dug Clooney's revolutionary hairstyle, the "Et tu, Brute?". Maybe you secretly wished that you and Nurse Hathaway could play "Where am I hiding the thermometer today?".

Maybe you had some sort of drinking game going - a Jagermeister shot every time they yelled for a CBC panel and tox screenl. Who knows?

As of last night's final episode, it's the end of an era. To all the plethora of fine medical staff and trotted-out guest stars that ever graced the linoleum of County General Hospital (with the exception of Eriq LaSalle, who was always such a miserable feminine hygiene product), we raise a glass of O positive/Shiraz to you.

And to the writers who culled stories from both the headlines and from "Obscure Medical Freak Diagnoses of the 20th Century", we say thank you. Most of the time.

Just think, though. Had you dug deep enough to chat with Dr. MacDonald, Dr. Byrnes, Dr. Steinberg, Dr. St. Clair, Dr. Swanson, Dr. Kransdorf, or Jane Doe the Mystery RN, you could have possibly had enough material to drag out the show for one more season.

Our loss.

From the "Medical Oops" files:

1. A man comes into the ER and yells, "My wife's going to have her baby in the cab!" I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, Lifted the lady's dress, and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs ------and I was in the wrong one.

Submitted by Dr. Mark MacDonald, San Francisco


2. At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient's anterior chest wall. "Big breaths," I instructed. "Yes, they used to be," replied the patient.

Submitted by Dr. Richard Byrnes, Seattle , WA


3. One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a Wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a "massive internal fart".

Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg


4. During a patient's two week follow-up appointment with his cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor, that he was having trouble with one of his medications. "Which one?" I asked. "The patch, the Nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I'm running out of places to put it!" I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn't see. Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! The instructions now include removal of the old patch before applying a new one.

Submitted by Dr. Rebecca St. Clair, Norfolk , VA


5. While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked, "How long have you been bedridden?" After a look of complete confusion she answered "Why, not for about twenty years - when my husband was alive."

Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson- Corvallis , OR


6. I was performing rounds at the hospital one morning and while checking up on a woman I asked, "So how's your breakfast this morning?" "It's very good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can't seem to get used to the taste" the patient replied. I then asked to see the jelly and the woman produced a foil packet labeled "KY Jelly."

Submitted by Dr. Leonard Kransdorf, Detroit, MI


7. A nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room when a young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that read, "Keep off the grass. "Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient's dressing, which said, "Sorry, had to mow the lawn."

Submitted by RN no name