MFBP = Mothers for Beer Patrol

Nothing warms the cockles of my sarcastic heart *quite* like seeing a new mother emerge from the maternity ward with a baby, an "It's a girl!" balloon, and a shirt proclaiming her proud membership in the "beer patrol." I'm sure that family will be just fine. ;-)

Speaking of sarcasm, I might have gotten some points docked from my professionalism grade in POM for speaking my mind about a hypothetical patient situation in which a family asks a physician not to tell their father that he's got *terminal cancer*. Sure, given a real situation, I'd be civil to the family and try to ascertain why they feel that their father should not know he only has 3 months left to live. But realistically, I think that's one of the most assinine requests I've ever heard. If a patient doesn't want to know their diagnosis, that's a different story... but I'm not going to hold my tongue among my own peers when the idea of lying to a patient is discussed. Although I guess I could have gone without basically saying I thought the hypothetical family was stupid for making that request, particularly in front of my faculty.

Perhaps it's because I've seen so many terminally ill people (in my family, working at a hospice, etc), so to me that part of one's life is not something you can just force a person to ignore. If someone wants to ignore that they are dying, it's their choice (though, that choice is often harder on everyone else)... but never giving someone that choice is disrespectful (and not realistic). I know there are always exceptions in medicine, but overall that idea makes me uncomfortable.