When I was still in Medical School, I visited my brother. His daughter found me in the backyard, and announced she was sent to me because she had a rock up her nose! I had no tools of my trade with me, and made do with a tweezers and extracted the rock. Great success! Now fast forward 6 years. I am now a practicing family physician, and I told that tale to my mentor Emmett. "That's not how you take a rock out of a kid's nose!" he said, and proceeded to pass doåwn to me his method. It sounded hilarious and clever, and I hoped I'd get the chance to use it. I did. ONCE!
One day the next patient was a young boy with a bead up his nose. Now, it's impossible to use a tweezers to grasp a bead: the force just pushes it further in. But I recalled my partner's method and said to the Mom, "Excuse me, I know what to do, but I have to go get something." I went to the office lounge and brought back a tin of ground pepper. I shook some into my palm, and told the boy to sniff hard at it. He DID! Then I put my finger on the opposite nostril and waited. Beat. As he inhaled deeply and shut his eyes I knew he was about to sneeze. When he did, the bead shot out the opposite nostril and bounced on the floor. His mother looked stunned, then laughed, the boy laughed, I laughed, and I said, "That was fabulous! I enjoyed that so much this will be a no-charge visit!" That's it. A first vignette from a long career. I have lots of those, not all funny. And more to talk about!!
Very funny! I suppose you can call learning from the school of hard snots!