The Doctor, the Cucumber and the Vagina

It was three a.m. and my pager awakened me, like fingernails down a blackboard. It was the emergency room, again. I rounded up the gaggle of medical students (a.k.a. the EBUs ─ ego building units) for an educational experience, because that’s what medical school memories are made of: late night trips to the E.R. with a bitchy resident. Conveniently, all three were named Steve (OK, I named them that, so convenient for me). Off I went, the Steve’s trailing after me like a comet tail.

“She said she’ll only see the gynecologist,” the emergency room attending smirked. The Steves quaked. What kind of patient would have that bravado, to raise the chief resident from her slumber? Like waking the Kraken. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the chart.

As I performed the exam one of the Steves hit the ground. I couldn’t tell if it was because he saw his first real-live vagina or because of what I’d pulled out of it: a cucumber, a peeled cucumber. Not an English cucumber of course (now that would be something), more like a pickled cuke. 

I stepped over Steve # 3 and moved closer to the bedside. It is always a delicate situation. Do you go about your business and make like you haven’t just pulled a peeled cucumber out of some girl’s vagina, or do you ask, “Was it peeled when it went in?”

Perhaps there is a special skill involved, like tying a cherry stem into a knot with your tongue?

Most doctors would say nothing. but it is three a.m., and I am not like most doctors.

And so, the discussion began. . . 

By Jennifer Gunter