THE CURE FOR DROWSINESS

As emergency physicians, we work pretty weird hours. It's basically shift work, without the benefit of a union to force our employers to schedule us on a pattern most in line with our natural circadian rhythm. You work at Meat Hooks Incorporated? Great - you get two weeks of morning, two weeks of afternoons, two weeks of nights, and wash/rinse/repeat. Work in an ER? We'll just schedule you for whatever we need, k? Thanks.

I was in my final year of residency; I had just come off of a night shift and was incredibly tired. I saw a million patients, was like an Energizer bunny for over ten hours, and I just wanted to go home. BUT I COULDN'T. No no no, not yet. Today was Radiology Conference day! Yay! What that meant was that after rounds, I had to go and sit in a dark room and be quizzed on various x-rays/CT scans/ultrasounds - for an hour. Typically at this conference, the residents who show up in the morning will stay awake throughout the conference, and the ones who are coming off of their night shift end up passing out at some point. Come on, it's a dark room and we finally get to sit down, what else do you expect?

This particular conference was a little... different. I got to conference about ten minutes late, as I had an unstable patient that needed some extra care before I could leave the department. It's not as if patients just stop being sick because I have conference, you know? By the time I got to the conference room, all of the chairs were taken, so I took a spot on the floor, surrounded by five others. As the radiology attending discussed a chest x ray on the screen, my eyelids started to feel heavy. The already dark room began to become darker... and... I was out. And then it happened.

I jolted myself awake with a violent fart. 

It wasn't your run of the mill squeaker. My sphincter saw an opportunity, decided to swing for the fences, and took it deep to left field. Out of the park deep.

The radiology attending stopped talking. People started snickering all around me. The sound of whispering was all around me! As it was very dark, I could have gotten away with it - but I had just been asleep, wasn't thinking clearly, and quite frankly didn't really care.

Dr. Z: Yup. That was me.

Luckily for those around me, this one had a lot of bass, and not a lot of chase. Loud and not proud. Basically, it didn't smell. And hey - if I've learned anything from watching Major League Baseball's steroid era, it's this - they'll still love you if you come clean. Even if you leave an air bagel.