— Medical school gynecology rotation — Fall 1979 —
We had some good laughs as third-year medical students during our rotation on Gynecology. We had as our attending a very knowledgeable and skilled physician named Julian DeLia. He always referred to himself as “The Captain Of The Ship”, especially in the operating room. We began referring to ourselves as mates, swabbies, and bosens, and we would make remarks such as “permission to come aboard, sir”, “aye-aye, sir”, “Bon voyage”, and “ahoy”. Of course, we only said these things to ourselves and to our resident and intern, and not to the Captain himself. During that same rotation, one of our residents asked an end-stage cervical cancer patient where she was, and she said, “West Germany”. He then pointed out to her that none of us were speaking German, and she replied, “Well, we must be in East Germany then.”
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