Have you ever joined a group of people and then been appalled by them? What I mean is a love-hate kind of thing, kind of like the way some people feel about their relatives. Maybe you (like some of us) grew up in the kind of family where silent, protracted struggles are enacted over chairs that are dragged squealing back and forth across wooden floors, all because no one wants to sit next to the toupee-wearing, nose-picking, crotch-fondling (yes, all at the same time) uncle. You don’t really have much choice about joining the family group—it was a means to an end (life). But then, somewhere around your tenth birthday, maybe you realized that not all families have a fight over who’s going to sit where during Sunday dinner. Or, if that wasn’t your family, maybe there’s something in the past. Maybe you get all excited about genealogy, but when you go digging around, you find out that your executed ancestors had a too-intimate knowledge of sheep.
See the problem, once you know this kind of information, is that you can ‘t change it. All you can do is wish you never looked.
That’s how I feel about the medical profession. I love it. I hate it. I cringe about the things it does, and the things it did.
The latest cringe-worthy addition to my group’s collective ancestor-behavior is found at this site, where you can see a little visual fact about the practice of medicine from the 17th to early 19th centuries:
Yes, folks, we doctors used to try to resuscitate people by, literally, blowing smoke up their ass.
   Now, if you’re in the august medical profession, how can you take yourself seriously? Only a fool would not realize that you (and your tourniquet) are going to be in some gruesome future exhibit of 21st century medical idiocy.
But, at the same time, I love my job. And I love the best of doctors—the best of the medical profession is like dorks gone wild, that perfect blend of big heart and weird fascination with facts–pretty much everything you could want in a nebbishy caregiver.
The fact is, even if I wanted to distance myself from the profession, the much worse realization (if you’re me), is when you see an anal-smoke-resuscitator, you ARE part of this group (almost genetically) because, whether you want to or not, your mind goes places that it shouldn’t. Like, how exactly did this smoke blowing thingy work? Did the doc have to inhale before he exhaled? Was this whole process the only documented example in history where a doctor, literally, ass-kisses a patient?
And, then (because you can’t seem to stop these thoughts) you wonder, what about flammability? We’ve got flatulence, we’ve got ignition. Did anyone blast off?
Or, (help me, please, make it stop, you beg) was there ever a study? Perhaps a double-blind (or make that double-cheeked) study with randomized controls? Could we have overlooked something important about this method? Could such an approach work today —in the same way leeches are being re-introduced for modern beneficial purposes?
You can’t get these thoughts out of your head, if for no other reason than because you know for a fact that the tobacco industry would give any doctor in America at least 1,000 large just to publicly suggest the idea of resurrection-by-tobacco (while carefully skirting, so-to-speak, the rectum issue). And, if you would never take cash for that kind of thing, you’re pretty sure there’s someone in the medical profession who would.
There you are–appalled by these insights into yourself and your profession. How do you live with Rubber Glove Guilt? Well, you’ve always know (but now you’ve been reminded, again) that you can’t take yourself, or your profession, too seriously. And, more importantly, you keep the whole smoke-up-the-butt issue to yourself. You hope no one notices it. All because you’re afraid (shudder) of what your relatives colleagues might do when someone else realizes the financial potential of this latest angle on Big Tobacco money, and ass-kissing by the medical profession…
P.S. When you go to this site, notice that the photo can be sent as an e-card, which begs the question–for what holiday/event? I Got A Pain In The Butt–Thinking Of You! or, Welcome Back From The Dead! or, Happy National Your-Cigarettes-Smell-Like-S#$t Day! Join in and write your favorite anal-tobacco-resuscitator e-card caption in the Comments!