The Adventures of Batman and Robin

We have had a patient on our ward with a nice slowly healing leg ulcer which has required lots of VAC pumping meaning he's been on our ward a long long time now.

My registrar and I walked in at 7:05am on our daily ward round and were greeted by him:

"Well if it isn't Batman and Robin!"

The title's kinda stuck now... so Dr M and I have become the dynamic duo of the surgical ward. The first team to round (cos we usually have more patients and sicker ones too) and often the last to leave, we rid the city of surgical pathology.

I must say though that I've been very blessed to have a good registrar this term. He doesn't order many medical consults (which really saves me from getting grilled by the overworked med reg's) and is often willing to help me out if needed with my menial jobs. After our rounds we call a "Crisis Meeting" and have coffee/hot chocolate accompanied by scones/chocolate dotty cookies and read the daily newspaper whilst basking in the sun and discussing the latest goss.

We've gone to the gym together after work, played indoor soccer after work and had multiple meals together. We're a team in the true sense of the word.

So now he's taken it upon himself to try to set me up with a) a med student, b) a physiotherapist and c) a pharmacist. And apprently it's a competition between Team Surgery (Batman and Robin) vs team Medicine ("Ian-Thorpe's-slightly-less-metro-twin-brother") to see who can impress the barbie doll pharm chick. (I'm bowing out before the race even begins... but my reg won't listen)

Every morning I have a freshly printed patient list ready for him from the printers downstairs (which for some reason print the list in a different way to the printers upstairs??) I anticipate his thinking now so that on the ward I'll pre-empt his management plans and even have arranged management before he gets out of theatre.

If we finish theatre early we'll drive in his Audi downtwon to grab coffee or do some chores and if we're stuck in theatre I'll go buy sushi for him and the senior surgeon. Like battle hardened comrades on the frontline of the war against disease, we forge good strong mateship that grow over 'doing stuff' together. This is how guys relate... by doing stuff... like playing sport or amputating limbs.

I've only got 3 more days left on the team before I start my nights... so it's with much sadness that Robin will have to leave Batman on his own adventures and fight crime by night whilst the caped crusader cuts people open by day.