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The Song Challenge:   He's A Long, Tall Surgeon -- (Indianapolis, IN) A spokesperson for the MidWest Medical Center announced today that the hospital would remove all spittoons from its surgical intensive care unit, following complaints by patients. "This has all been a colossal misunderstanding, and we want to put it behind us", said hospital spokesman Henry O'Toole. According to O'Toole, the 19th century-style saliva receptacles had been placed in the intensive care unit by Dr. Nick Testa, a staff surgeon. Anonymous sources within the hospital described Dr. Testa's reputation as a surgical "cowboy", a part he had increasingly tried to play to the maximum. "First people were just referring to him as a 'cowboy' because he basically took anyone to the OR, no matter what their problem was", said the source. "Then about five years ago, he started wearing hand-tooled cowboy boots...OK, lots of surgeons do that." Apparently several staff were upset when Dr. Testa tried last month to operate on a patient wearing a Lone Ranger style mask, after earlier wearing a bandana pulled up over his handlebar moustache, instead of a standard surgical mask. "He was just yelling: 'This IS my mask, this IS my mask', when they tried to get him out of the OR", according to Sally Stevens, a MidWestern scrub nurse. Many staff members regarded as amusing Testa's practice of carrying his stethoscope in a holster, drawing it with a rapid motion when he intended to examine a patient. However, when Testa brought three large brass spittoons into the surgical intensive care unit, patients and their families began to complain. Testa's habit of chewing tobacco and spitting towards the spittoons reportedly became increasingly disruptive to intensive care unit staff, who frequently had to change intravenous lines and dressings when Testa missed his mark. According to O'Toole, Dr. Testa is currently on vacation in Montana, and so is unavailable for comment.


Rock By the Old Rio Grande by Amos
(Tune: Rockabye Sweet Baby James, by James Taylor)

There is a young Doctor, he dreams of the range
His mind is afloat on a far Western journey
An' he dreams of the saddle, instead of the gurney
Only returning to earn pocket change;

An' as the day fades though he's working his scalpel
And earnin' his keep with his medical skills,
He's really out yonder, away from the people,
Rounding up dogies on the far Western hills,

Givin' tunes out instead of them pills.

He sings, Goodnight, you old gunslingers
Rockabye by the ol' Rio Grande
Mah hand's in yore brains, but my heart's on the plains,
Woncha give my ol' suture a hand?
And rock by the old Rio Grande

He's an ICU medic, out riding the fences,
Hearing the dogies come round to his tunes,
An' lining Recovery with old brass spittoons
With one life in Boston and one oh so far away,

As he's signing prescriptions with half his attention,
Sung to the jingle of bedpans and spurs,
Singing gunslinger's ballads, of his own invention,
For the one thing that heals him, of all of his cures.
Is the sweet Western wind that endures,

He sings -- Goodnight, you old gunslingers
Rockabye by the ol' Rio Grande
Mah hand's in yore brains, but my heart's on the plains,
Woncha give my ol' suture a hand?
And rock by the old Rio Grande

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