Surgery 101 – the fundamentals of cutting people up

This week, pen-slinger takes a break from callow humor and juvenile themes to repay his debt to society. As a social service, we turn our attention once again to education, and pen one more educative post in the Education-101 series.

This week, we take up that important subject: Surgery.

Surgery is not, as many a layperson may think, the domain of super-specialized highly trained men in white gowns and cold stethoscopes.

No, surgery can be done by just about anyone - for profit and for fun. Those white gowns – you just need them to hide coffee stains on the shirt and cold stethoscopes are great mostly for inserting up the unsuspecting backs of members of the opposite sex and watching them jump. Dip in ice water an hour before application for best effect.

To Work!

Let us now peruse this important news item which demonstrates practical real-world surgery as it happens in daily life, not the theoretical stuff in medical text books. The news item is old, admittedly, but this just serves to provide the distance required for raw passions to subside and look at the matter clinically and with perspective.

Woman bobbitises her former lover

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore 2^nd Dec 2008: When Mir Arshad Ali, 33, jilted his lover of nine years and married another woman six months ago, he did not think it would cost him more than his happiness. He almost lost his life when the furious woman lured him and bobbitised him.

    Ali should have known better than to scorn a woman, though she also took him to hospital and left him to his fate. He is now recuperating.

    Ali, a dentist based in Mysore, and Sayeeda Amina, 30, a dentist herself, were neighbours in N R Mohalla. They had been having a relationship for a long time, but as the years passed, there were some hiccups. Ali decided to break away, and married a journalist from Mumbai.

    Amina, meanwhile, was staying with her mother in Koramangala 8th Block and had opened a clinic called ‘Meswak Dental Care’. She called Ali for a chat last Saturday, and the unsuspecting man came to her clinic.

    Amina is believed to have given him some juice, which made him lose consciousness. According to the police, Ali was still in a sub-conscious state when a seething Amina cut off his genitals.

    Later, when Ali recovered some consciousness, he reportedly asked Amina to take him to hospital. She took him to Sagar Hospital on Bannerghatta Road, and gave his mobile and laptop to the hospital staff. The police said that Amina and her mother are absconding.

    When the media tried to contact Ali, his family refused to speak. His wife, who has lodged a complaint with the Koramangala police, said they did not wish to talk to anybody except the police.

    Doctors operating on Ali also refused to comment on his condition, but said that he is out of danger.

What tips on practical surgery did you get from reading it? Do you now feel confident going out into the world with your scalpels on the draw? Read the text one more time to internalize it, and answer the questions below to make sure you’ve really understood it.

Q1: Who or what makes a good surgeon?

1. A Dentist
2. A Woman
3. A Jilted Lover **
4. All of the above

** ‘Jilt’ is an old-fashioned reflexive verb that means shake by the collar until the teeth rattle. Reflexive means it happens to the subject of the sentence. So if you jilt someone, it is your teeth that rattle.

Ans: As we said, anyone can become a surgeon. A dentist, a woman, jilted lovers – all good surgeon material. But put them all together – a jilted woman dentist… Boy! You have one all-time-great surgeon. If you meet someone like that, run.

Q2: Why does one usually visit dentists?

1. Hear unsolicited comments of a very personal and wounding nature about ones gums, breath and moral fiber in general.
2. Experience poverty at first hand
3. Get teeth taken out
4. Get the testicles removed.

Ans: for male patients: all of the above. For females: only A, B and C. Women patients do not, usually, have testicles.

Q3: What do you do when a dentist asks you to:-

1. Open your mouth
2. Open your wallet
3. Take down your pants

Ans:   

A - Open your mouth.

B - Open your wallet

C - Shake your head, oscillating it gently from side to side, and keep your pants firmly up.

Q4: What is Bobbetising?

1. A funny euphemism thought up by the journalist who can’t call a spade a spade.
2. An intricate dental procedure involving a whirring drill and lots of blood, gore and cursing.
3. Surgical removal of the appendix
4. Surgical removal of the testicles

Ans: Do you really need the answer for this?

Q5: What do you do if you are married to a dentist?

1. Remove all sharp implements from the house.
2. Avoid giving offence of any kind.
3. Look down your pants from time to time, just to be sure.
4. Pray

Ans: Don’t marry dentists in the first place. If you’ve already done it, it’s too late.