Headgear

So let's say an illustrator or cartoonist wants to depict a character instantly recognizable as a doctor. What attributes will the drawing be given? Probably two: a long white coat, and a big round mirror on a headband. If you keep track of doctors in, say, cartoons in The New Yorker, I bet you'll find that at least half of them are wearing head mirrors. Now think back to the last time you were in a clinic and the doctor walked in wearing a head mirror. Yeah, me neither.

I would have thought they were extinct. However, this week I started an Otolaryngology clerkship, and on the first day each of us was issued...a head mirror! Later this week I'll be making my first attempt to examine the back of someone's throat in, truly, the old-fashioned way. (Word is that examining ears this way is much harder.) Have to admit, I think this would be a very cool skill to learn.

So watch out, gentle readers. Someday you may wander into my ER with a sore throat, and actually have the classic experience of being examined by someone with a big ol' mirror on his head.

(By the way, for anyone tempted to make a crack about us rural folk making do without electricity, may I point out that Iowa has the #2 ranked Otolaryngology program in the country. So there, all you high-tech city folk with your electric light bulbs and your 24-hour power supply.)