how to piss off a surgeon

a few easy ways to do this:
1. eat right before your surgery, then answer the question truthfully when asked, thus forcing the cancellation of your surgery for at least 24 hours;
2. take a lot of coumadin, tell the nurses, thus forcing the cancellation of your surgery for at least another week;
3. work as a scheduler at a really busy but really mismanaged hospital and constantly push back a case.

all i heard, over and over, for about eight hours yesterday was rich barking into his cell phone, "why am i being pushed back again? how is that more important than my case? don't you realize this guy has been NPO since this morning? he's 95! you need to go in there and explain to his family why he can't eat. i know the contents of his eye are sitting on his cheek! this was supposed to go at 10:00 this morning!" (it finally went at midnight--and how to piss off a photographer is to NOT take pictures of a patient with the content of his eye sitting on his cheek.)

there are some jobs i am really glad i don't have...and some patients i am glad i am not.