Funniest moments of med school

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slowthai

slowthai

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In the spirit of entertainment, I wanted to compile a list of the funniest moments you've seen or experienced in med school. So grab a glass of apple juice, recline, and let the stories roll.
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Not mine personally but I heard a story about a classmate who came out of our standardized female pelvic exam and said "This is why you don't go to med school a virgin". I'll add one of my own when I can dig it up out of all my repressed memories.
 
When you are dissecting the brachial plexus with your donor’s arm around your waist, and while adjusting the arm better to micromanage your fat extraction and hear a loud *POP* emanate from the shoulder joint. The obvious first thing that pops into consciousness: “Welp, I did OMM on my first patient. Too bad I was too late.”
 
During a lecture this past year, someone's laptop charger literally exploded. Like the box part that's halfway down the cord somehow burst open. It was pretty loud and spooked everyone around it. Plus it was like the first row so the lecturer was pretty startled too.

Maybe not outright funny, but it was certainly a unique experience.
 
Preclinicals :

- My friend was dissecting across from me, flung a piece of fat deep into the back of my mouth. I am cannibal. And it tasted sweet (that may have been the formaldehyde).

- We were doing unknowns in microbio. My brush flung some into my friends mouth. Turned out to be gonorrhea. The story forever went that I gave him gonorrhea, his wife was NOT pleased.

- Getting caught by my anatomy professor chugging a beer before a test, then becoming his TA and research assistant and partying it down.

- Setting up a row of laptops in the back of lecture hall and going to war with each with various co-op games

Clinicals :

- Was in first surgery rotation. The Attending gives a saline breast and silicon breast to my friend and says which one he likes more. My friend squeezes them and says the saline. The Attending snatches them back and sneers, "You're a rookie aren't you?!"

- Same surgery rotation. Friend being a little scatter brained. Attending, "Do you smoke?"

"Cigarettes?" My friend asks.

"No," Attending replies," Marijuana."

"No."

"You should."

- I spent third year being directed by my medicine attending to a prank war with the cardiologist. I had to break into his office every so often and plaster Miley Cyrus paraphernalia all over the place. This made for a great story during interviews.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
Not mine personally but I heard a story about a classmate who came out of our standardized female pelvic exam and said "This is why you don't go to med school a virgin". I'll add one of my own when I can dig it up out of all my repressed memories.
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you know, this makes me wonder, what it is like for medical students who ARE virgins. medical school must seem so invasive for them.... i mean, i remember how we were cutting through the penis of our cadaver, and all the males were literally cringing..... It was so painful to watch. But if on top of that you also feel uncomfortable? hmmm... interesting.
 
In my 4th year, already knew I had matched into surgery.

On my last ER shift, the last mandatory rotation before I could sail into graduation.

My attending tells me there is a 20yoM who needs medical clearance for transfer to an inpatient psych facility. He had a history of schizophrenia, and was apparently a frequent flyer. His notes didn’t have much information in them.

Just pop in quick he said, just do a quick heart and lung exam he asked.

I walked to the security desk, and was greeted by the same sassy security guard I had the pleasure of conversing when things got slow. She was monitoring the security cameras inside the psych rooms. Looking at the monitor, I saw my patient in an empty room in bed, veiled in the same white sheet that all patients seemed to get upon arrival.

“He’s just been laying there” the security guard told me. Ready to get it over with, I lumbered into the ward.

At the door things seemed calm, just like the security camera led me to believe.

Opening the door, my patient poked his head out from under the sheet.

“Hi Sir, I’m a medical student here to talk to you,” I said in a tired tone. You see, it was the end of a 12 hour shift. I was one “quick heart and lung exam” away from my quiet car ride home.

As if energized by my presence, the patient threw the sheet to the wall, exposing his completely naked body. Anatomically speaking, his penis was erect. He began furiously touching himself. I stood in shock, not because he was masturbating, but curious how someone could even get an erection in a psych ward, especially in front of someone wearing a short white coat.

“I don’t have a heart, or any lung for you to touch” the patient said. Oh, so this clearly wasn’t his first rodeo.

I left the room and shut the door. In silence, the security guard was hunched over laughing so hysterically I could almost hear her through the security glass.

I returned to my desk, wrote my note (including less information that the prior notes-future surgeon after all) and told my attending that he was clear for discharge. The ride home was quiet as ever.
 
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aaronrodgers said:
I was doing some really rough blunt dissection and accidentally flicked pieces of fat and cadaver juice into my classmate’s eyes during anatomy lab. We were just 3 weeks into med school. I’m so sorry Ashley :arghh:
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Noooo

RIP Ashley


You shall know the Truth said:
IM lecture on CXR, one of the residents is called on to interpret. “Trachea midline,” then pauses, “idk it’s not a vagina.” I was shocked. Come to find out it was a OB resident on IM that month.
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Ha that’s actually pretty awesome
 
Attending on vascular surgery hands me the Gigli saw to cut off a diabetic foot 5 hours into my first day. First time in surgery with them. I ask “How much of this amputation am I going to do?” They reply “The whole thing. Whats the worst that can happen, you mess up and cut off the leg?”. Kind of morbid but it’s a story I enjoy Telling lol.

Same attending loved surgery jokes and loved to say “Vascular patients never get better, they only get shorter”.
 
A couple from Ob-Gyn:

"Oh look, I can see my vagina again! Hello, vagina!" - Patient literally 15 seconds after giving birth, before she greets her child

"Gestational age is just a number." - Resident on an MFM attending's heroic attempts to delay preterm labor at 33+4 (she had already received steroids 2 days earlier). Ultimately delivered at 34+0.

"I feel like I'm waterboarding my baby!" - New breastfeeding mother with overly powerful myoepithelial cells

73 year old patient with atrophic vaginitis comes in to complain that the estrogen gel we gave her isn't working.
Me: "How often are you using it?"
Patient: "Well, my husband can't get it up quite as often anymore. But we use it twice a week still!"
Me: "You're using it... as lube?"
Patient: "Yeah, and it doesn't taste very good!"

"Once you use your uterus... peace. I'm outta there." - Peds attending, transferring us a teenage pregnancy
 
My wife is an OR nurse at one of the community hospitals that has rotating 3rd year Med students. It’s like July or August and this brand new 3rd year walks in ready to go into his first surgery. One problem, my mans had a shoe cover on as his cap.
 
Ok ok ok I got one. Not med school, but it was too funny not to share. This was back in undergrad. I was between classes and this small kid with glasses was on his bike. As he was riding merrily along, he ran DIRECTLY into this massive, built football player. It was literally like he ran himself headfirst into a wall. He kissed the ground, hard. Listen, the sound of the impact was SO LOUD that everyone just stopped. Time stood still, as everyone waited intently for the football player's reaction. The football player just glared at him and kept it moving. Then immediately, everyone burst out laughing.

I have a personal policy of not laughing at people that get into accidents no matter what, but something in my brain went "We won't laugh at him, but we'll laugh at the fact that people are laughing at him" So I laughed
 
Me during FOSCE: "Hi I'm BoneWizard, I'm a first year medical student and my preceptor Dr. Thompson has asked me to do a routine neuro exam on you."
Patient: "Isn't your preceptor Dr. Thomas?
Me: "Is it?"

-

Facilitator: "You have a patient complaining of sudden onset headache with diplopia, what's the first thing you do?"
Group member: "Call 911"

-

Classmate: "Patient history unremarkable except prophylactic double hysterectomy"
Lecturer: "You mean mastectomy"

-

Overheard in anatomy lab: "This looks nothing like Aclands."

-

Overheard in the hallway: "What do you mean I can't use sarin to treat curare poisoning?"
 
Oh god, so many. A lot of the funniest moments were inside jokes borne out of night float and sleep deprivation that wouldn't translate well to other people though.

The first time I closed a port site on a patient the resident says, "Yeah, yeah that's the right idea for sure. My main feedback would be to do it...better?"

At my school for the surgery rotation we would wear formal clothes for clinic and change into scrubs for any cases. I usually brought tennis shoes with me to change into but forgot them for some reason that day so I had to go to a surgery wearing leather dress shoes. I thought I was being slick and put shoe covers on it in such a way that it was pretty hard to see the actual shoe. Nevertheless within 30 seconds of walking into the OR one of the anesthesiologists just goes, "Hey man, nice shoes."
 
bananafish94 said:
Oh god, so many. A lot of the funniest moments were inside jokes borne out of night float and sleep deprivation that wouldn't translate well to other people though.

The first time I closed a port site on a patient the resident says, "Yeah, yeah that's the right idea for sure. My main feedback would be to do it...better?"

At my school for the surgery rotation we would wear formal clothes for clinic and change into scrubs for any cases. I usually brought tennis shoes with me to change into but forgot them for some reason that day so I had to go to a surgery wearing leather dress shoes. I thought I was being slick and put shoe covers on it in such a way that it was pretty hard to see the actual shoe. Nevertheless within 30 seconds of walking into the OR one of the anesthesiologists just goes, "Hey man, nice shoes."
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Same, except they were heeled loafers and they made sound through the shoe cover. I have never looked more ridiculous.

25759F59-ED3C-4EA9-BC99-68C9ED1D52D1.jpeg
 
One time during an SP encounter, I had a funny foot in mouth moment. He was a young guy who presented with passing out while exercising.

At one point in the history, he says, “I didn’t even want to come in, but my wife and my workout buddy insisted.”

And I responded with: “Well it’s good you came in. Even if it ends up being nothing, that’s what we’re here for.”

He goes, “Thanks that makes me feel better.”

So I said, “Yeah, you seem to be handling it well. If that happened to me, I know I’d be worried and would want to get checked out.”

And his eyes got all big, and he goes, “oh so you think I should be worried?”

Cue furious backpedaling.

We laughed about that one after haha.
 
Idk if this counts, but I've literally fallen out of a chair while studying with one of my classmates. It was one of those swivel chairs and I guess I was just perfectly sitting on the edge so that when I turned, it was the perfect storm of momentum to send me to the ground before I could right myself. Worse part was, I think I was explaining something to him when this happened so he just full on watched in horror as I went flailing to the floor lol.

I remember just sitting there for a second and being like ".... can we never talk about this again" and to my relief he was like "yeah no problem dude"
 
Was in a group of med students doing the SP breast exam. One of the male students did the manual exam on the right breast in the two-handed fashion we were taught; then in going to perform the exam on the left breast, got flustered (was blushing redder than a tomato) and forgot what to do, so kept his left hand on her right breast and did a single handed exam on the left side. It was.....awkward. Those SPs are saints and gave him professional feedback. When we asked him afterwards what the Sam Hill he was trying to do, he was like “I don’t know.I forgot what to do with my hand. I though we had to compare sizes for symmetry!”

I vasovagaled.....while rounding. Woke up to my classmates hoisting my legs up and the nurses trying to call a rapid. Never happened in the OR tho.
 
I find Urology rotations pretty funny in the sense that it's the same thing every time. Every patient under 30 is treated like a stud, it's always 'hey there big guy' and when we get to 'how many sexual partners' in the history it just turns into boys club. Plus all the sex jokes/innuendos with the older patients wives.
 
scrublyfe21 said:
Attending on vascular surgery hands me the Gigli saw to cut off a diabetic foot 5 hours into my first day. First time in surgery with them. I ask “How much of this amputation am I going to do?” They reply “The whole thing. Whats the worst that can happen, you mess up and cut off the leg?”. Kind of morbid but it’s a story I enjoy Telling lol.

Same attending loved surgery jokes and loved to say “Vascular patients never get better, they only get shorter”.
Click to expand...
Wow did we have the same attending?? Second surgery of the rotation after the attending did some last ditch angiography and it was time to amputate they said “as long as the med student can name it, he can cut it” to the fellow and then scrubbed out and went home. Fellow let me do almost everything and it was so much fun (and morbid..but mostly fun)
 
I was scrubbed in to some laparoscopic surgery on my Ob rotation I don’t remember what it was. But I’m just sitting there looking at the screen when the resident points at something and says “what’s that?”. I honestly had no idea what was going on in the case but knew I was on Ob/gyn so I just guessed the uterus. The resident just started laughing and told me to look at where the camera was pointed on the patient. It was definitely the liver. 2 years of Med school at that point and I couldn’t even tell the liver from the uterus
 
I fell asleep holding a retractor for a cholecystectomy. Took a header right into the patient. Fortunately, he was morbidly obese and I am very short, so I bounced off the side of his abdomen and didn't fall into the operative field. Surgeon was really p.o.'d though!
 
So bear in mind extreme sleep deprivation for this one...

Locum attending in for a Saturday during surgery. Private doc, joking around and telling stories during rounds, middle aged with a ton of energy, and fits the surgeon phenotype minus being an dingus. We get to the end of rounds at maybe 8 AM or so and he mentions to the resident before he heads off, "Feel free to text or call whenever if anything comes up, no worries if it's a minor issue. Well, if it's not too late. I'm an old fart now, so I go to bed around 11."

Me, reflexively, momentarily forgetting he's an attending: "AM or PM?"

He just stared at me for a minute while I internally freaked out that I said that to an attending, then busted a big smile and thumped me on the shoulder and laughingly said "You're an ass."


Maybe that's why I got the vague feedback from my weekday attending that my residents said I'm too informal...
 
neuroguy91 said:
So bear in mind extreme sleep deprivation for this one...

Locum attending in for a Saturday during surgery. Private doc, joking around and telling stories during rounds, middle aged with a ton of energy, and fits the surgeon phenotype minus being an dingus. We get to the end of rounds at maybe 8 AM or so and he mentions to the resident before he heads off, "Feel free to text or call whenever if anything comes up, no worries if it's a minor issue. Well, if it's not too late. I'm an old fart now, so I go to bed around 11."

Me, reflexively, momentarily forgetting he's an attending: "AM or PM?"

He just stared at me for a minute while I internally freaked out that I said that to an attending, then busted a big smile and thumped me on the shoulder and laughingly said "You're an ass."


Maybe that's why I got the vague feedback from my weekday attending that my residents said I'm too informal...
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It happens. I once asked an attending if he was one of the chiefs because he was doing a teaching session that in other settings I had only seen being done by chiefs and senior residents. After that experience, I just ask everyone if they are an attending even if I have a strong suspicion they are not...everyone is happy that way.
 
My resident looked at my attending one morning and exclaimed "Oh, I didn't know you were pregnant! Congratulations!!! When is your due date?". Attending replied "Oh no...I guess it's time for me to go on a diet...."
 
LunaOri said:
My resident looked at my attending one morning and exclaimed "Oh, I didn't know you were pregnant! Congratulations!!! When is your due date?". Attending replied "Oh no...I guess it's time for me to go on a diet...."
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Had this happen to me with a patient. I got rid of the dress I had on after that. I was humiliated.
 
Friendly MichaelMyers said:
Excuse my lack of experience, but what is wrong with saying that?
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Blue non-sterile exam gloves are sized extra-large, large, medium, small
Sterile gloves have numbers for sizes: 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5, etc. And different brands/styles for different purposes, prices and fits. So by saying 'large' it could be just about any glove....I mean, some people may call a 5 large, who am I to judge?
 
Second rotation, family medicine.
Lady comes in for a post hospital follow up for cellulitis on her right leg. I know from her hospital note it was quite large. Usually, I like breaking the ice using understatement.

Me: "So I hear you've got a little bit of a skin infection."
Lady: "Cellulitis is not a little infection! Last time I got it..." points to where left leg used to be.
Me: 0.o
 
DrRedstone said:
Second rotation, family medicine.
Lady comes in for a post hospital follow up for cellulitis on her right leg. I know from her hospital note it was quite large. Usually, I like breaking the ice using understatement.

Me: "So I hear you've got a little bit of a skin infection."
Lady: "Cellulitis is not a little infection! Last time I got it..." points to where left leg used to be.
Me: 0.o
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Oh man that's rough!
 
ciestar said:
Had this happen to me with a patient. I got rid of the dress I had on after that. I was humiliated.
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This happened to me three times last year in different dresses. I'm not thin, but considering I was living in one of the most obese counties in one of the most obese states I was like.... REALLY???? Are YOU pregnant, sir?
 
kthals123 said:
This happened to me three times last year in different dresses. I'm not thin, but considering I was living in one of the most obese counties in one of the most obese states I was like.... REALLY???? Are YOU pregnant, sir?
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Im just average but i tend to carry weight in my lower abdomen. Worst yet, she patted my belly and she asked about it. I said no, im just fat.

Another patient asked me once. I said i wasnt and she followed up with “oh, you’re just fat”. I was a size 4 probably at the time. Yep, fat.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
That’s a sexual harassment complaint waiting to happen.
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When I was an intern, state was doing their routine investigation. One of the inspectors was in a conference room as my senior and I sat. My senior was worried I was spending too much time in the hospital and was too anal about things to which she exclaimed, "I need to get you a [prostitute!!] so you'll relax!!" The state inspector looked up and said, "I didn't hear anything, I'm not here!!"

I tried claiming sexual harassment to retire early, but everyone was too busy laughing.
 
ciestar said:
Im just average but i tend to carry weight in my lower abdomen. Worst yet, she patted my belly and she asked about it. I said no, im just fat.

Another patient asked me once. I said i wasnt and she followed up with “oh, you’re just fat”. I was a size 4 probably at the time. Yep, fat.
Click to expand...

My girlfriend is starting residency and told me about when her and her cointerns were getting sized for something and one of the women asked another woman her size. She responded and said “I ordered a size 6”. The one who asked about sizes looked her up and down and said “Hm well if you’re a 6 I must be a 4”
 
scrublyfe21 said:
My girlfriend is starting residency and told me about when her and her cointerns were getting sized for something and one of the women asked another woman her size. She responded and said “I ordered a size 6”. The one who asked about sizes looked her up and down and said “Hm well if you’re a 6 I must be a 4”
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Wow that is so awful!
 
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