About that Orb...

"Here it is..."



A hit of the Orb to MisterBuddwing, in the comments to "The Orb," about that Orb...

"Patient secretly recorded doctors as they operated on her. Should she be so distressed by what she heard?"

I don't know about that.

But it occurred to me: Why aren't we entitled to a recording of what is said around our body when we're under anesthesia? Why should you have to sneak a recording device into your ponytail? You have to be knocked out for the surgery, and all these people have access to your vulnerable body, why shouldn't you have a right to use an artificial device to do what your senses would normally do — monitor what's happening to you? Do the doctors and nurses have an interest in having a private conversation around your body? I'd say you have the greater interest in finding out what's happening to you when you're unconscious. Anyone who wants to make a recording should be able to do it openly. You wouldn't need to take any additional steps to improve the "bedside manner" of doctors and nurses.

What's the argument on the other side? The only halfway decent thing I can think of is that maybe better surgery gets done when doctors and nurses are blowing off steam, blabbing carelessly, aimlessly and not distracted by wondering what the patient will think of it. Remarks about how some body part looks — maybe it helps to say something crude or mean now and then. Maybe it's important not to think of everything from the point of view of a patient who might be sensitive and unduly judgmental.

IN THE COMMENTS: MisterBuddwing said:

Er, Professor, you tackled this very subject last December: http://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/12/after-five-minutes-of-talking-to-you-in.html

That post is about a man who used his cell phone to make a recording, and, in the comments there, john mosby said:

When I had a colonoscopy, I had to put all my clothes and personal effects in a locker, then put on a hospital gown. I assume this was to help keep the procedure room sterile and to avoid "hey, my necklace is missing!" claims. Where the heck did this guy conceal the cellphone?

And I said:

Can't you just buy something like this and pin it inside the hospital gown or hide it in your hair?

That's what the lady in this new article did. I'm not saying she got the idea from me — she did it before I made the suggestion — just that it's not such an odd and paranoid thing to think of getting a tiny USB device and hiding it in your hair.

"And while we're on the general subject, I saw the movie 'Big Eyes' yesterday, and before the film, the theater showed a commercial for Weight Watchers..."

"... which I found painfully funny as well as entertaining," said MisterBuddwing, commenting in last night's post about the "metabolic winter" theory.



Great commercial. I object to commercials in movie theaters, but if they're going to have them, it's good to be painfully funny and entertaining like that.

This topic and the movie title "Big Eyes" gave me a flashback to an old saying I haven't heard in a long while: "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach." I think that went out of fashion because it turned out the stomach was pretty good at adjusting its size.



That hilarious picture came up in a Google search on the old saying (on a blog, here).

There are many cartoon images for the old saying. Seems like everyone can think of this. Here's a better drawing of that. But stretch yourself, and you might get this. Try harder, and there's this.