Resident Year 2

The 2nd year was probably the least stressful of the residency, because the year was basically off service rotations with the only clinical work being night call. We had a great rotation in GYN pathology at Wash U and a rotation in anesthesiology that prepared us to cover our OB needs. Later they paid us $15 a case ( max of 4 cases a month) to give anesthesia for emergency cases.
We also were attached to a General Surgery team giving us extensive experience in surgical diagnosis and techniques. But the best part was it gave us a breather from OB which is a killer service with hours of boredom and seconds of sheer panic.
One of our rotations was with the famous authors Masters and Johnson who wrote the seminal work “Human Sexuality.” They
had set up a lab in which prostitutes were wired with electrodes and stimulated to document orgasmic responses. I guess I was fortunate to be at IU where the Kinsey wrote “The Kinsey Report” and Wash U for the above. Both volumes were deemed a break through in understanding human sexuality.
A couple of things happened in this second year that ended up being advantageous to my training, though what occurred was hardly my doing. The first thing was Dr.P a 3rd year had to drop out because he contracted TB as I had in medical school. And the second thing was Dr.F was fired from the program for unprofessional conduct, he punched a nurse in the back of her head! Dr.F was a strange individual, to say the least, who was built like a line backer and carried his books and personal things around in a pillow case. (duh!)






He was unpredictable and had a temper that made everyone scared of him. One day on the elevator a tiny little nurse asked innocently “ Dr F are you married?” and turned to exit. He said “ maybe I am and maybe not, it’s none of your damn business” and hit her in the back of the head with his fist so hard she dropped like a sack of flour. Naturally they had to get rid of this loose canon, and that left the 3rd year level 2 residents short. The chiefs all liked me so they suggested to Smiley and Monat that I rotate with the 3rd year and one of them would back me up. This was great for me but it caused a little jealousy with the other two 2nd year. So I moved my stuff up to the 3rd year call room and did what I was asked.
There is an inside game in medicine in which those who are better than others tend to rise to the top and it kind of gets to be common knowledge around the hospital. There is also a sub group who are klutzes or light as feathers brain wise who are treated like a joke.
We had a standing retort to anyone in this category “ Mr Moke could do that!”
Who was Mr Moke? St. Louis had a world famous zoo and in the 50’s and 60’s Marlin Perkins, before “Wild Kingdom”, was the director of the zoo. One of the things he did to popularize the zoo and increase attendance was do a local Saturday morning TV animal show. And one of the most beloved animals of the children was a chimpanzee named “Mr Moke”, who could dance, skate, play drums, do all kind of human tasks. So we had a saying if one of our colleagues was inept or technically awkward, say they couldn’t tie a particular knot……” Hey, Mr Moke can do that!”
This became a sort of mantra around the hospital.
So by my moving into this unique position as an acting 3rd year among other things, my statue rose among the other residents and I was elected president of the house staff.






During my term, I tried to get our salary increased and hours reduced to no avail. The city was known to write us checks that may not be good on Monday (bounce) when pay day was Friday. So most of us cashed our checks at the Brinks pay truck and then handed over the cash to our wives, keeping what little we had left for cigarettes and to play poker in our on going game in the residents quarters. Missouri had some strange banking laws that there could not be bank branches. So the hospital deposited the hospital’s money from the city into a charter bank called Lindell Trust and because that gave the hospital controller leverage, he became one of the biggest car salesman in St. Louis. I’ll tell his story later.
The entire 2nd year was interesting because of the variety of duties I had and the administrative experience I gained. One bonus was I had a little more time to spend with my family.
But nothing runs as smooth as it seems and one of the problems was a need for more interns. Dr Sinkler died suddenly and my uncle Red became the acting medical director and asked me to visit IU on a recruiting trip. He gave me and another IU graduate $ 100 to go there and bring back some bodies……..we in fact brought back 3.
When the year ended I was now a 3rd year and was formally expected to function with my old buddy ( the drunk arrest guy) as a chief. What made it interesting was that he was single and lived in the hospital right across the hall from my flop room. So when I was on call he was in his room with guests or out moonlighting and when he was on call he was out with guests or moonlighting.
The switch board operators stayed stocked with beer covering his escapades. I in turn just stayed busy covering for him!