No Dancing in the End Zone

ROUNDS: The ritual whereby a senior doctor goes from bed to bed seeing patients, trailed by a gaggle of students.
ROUNDSMANSHIP: The art of distinguishing oneself from the gaggle with relentless displays of erudition.


The roundsman is the guy who, with the class huddled at the bed of a patient who has developed a rash after taking penicillin, raises his hand to ask the professor -- obnoxious ingratiation is best expressed in the form of a question -- whether this might not instead be a case of Schmendrick's Syndrome reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Ridiculously Obscure Tropical Diseases.

None of the rest of us gathered around the bed has ever heard of Schmendrick's. But that's the point. The point is for the prof to remember this hyper-motivated stiff who stays up nights reading journals in preparation for rounds. That's the upside. The downside, which the roundsman, let's call him Oswald, ignores at his peril, is that this apple polishing does not endear him to his colleagues, a slovenly lot, mostly hung over from a terrific night at the Blue Parrot.

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