M*A*S*H Goes to Hollywood by Richard Hooker & William E. Butterworth

Author:Richard Hooker & William E. Butterworth [Hooker, Richard & Butterworth, William E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Humor, Historical Fiction, War, Comedy, Medical, Media Tie-In, Tv, Movie, United States, Military
ISBN: 9780671804084
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1976-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Ten

There is, on the wall by the chief nurse’s station of the Spruce Harbor Medical Center, a large device known as the doctor board. It has a more formal title, of course, something like the Handy-Dandy Executive Model Medical Professional Personnel Locator, but it has been known since its installation as the doctor board.

The name of each physician admitted to the hospital staff is listed on the board in small white letters. So are the names of the registered nurses, the pharmacists, and some other professionals in whose whereabouts at all times the hospital has an interest.

Behind each name are spaces into which little plugs are fitted as appropriate. There’s a fine of holes marked “IN,” another line marked “OFFICE,” another marked “VACATION” and a final line marked “OTHER.” The final line is followed by a plastic surface on which the listee is required to write his or her whereabouts if she or he is not “IN,” at the “OFFICE,” or on “VACATION.” To maintain a certain nose-to-the-grindstone image insofar as patients, visitors, and other nonprofessionals who can look at the board are concerned, certain euphemisms are used.

“LABORATORY,” for example, meant that the listee could be found, if necessary, at Stanley K. Warczinski’s Bide-a-While Pool Hall and Saloon, Inc. “DEPT. OF HEALTH” meant that the listee, armed with a weighted club, was chasing a small white ball around the links of the Spruce Harbor Country Club, “BOARD MEETING” meant that the listee was in the office of Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce, chief of surgery, slurping martinis and should not be summoned to the practice of medicine for anything less than a major catastrophe, in which the risk of having him apply a Band-Aid might be justified.

Three days after Spruce Harbor Flying Service’s Flight Six had flown Mr. St. James and Mr. Rhotten to Lost Crystal Lake, there was quite a stir at the doctor board. Doctors and nurses from all over the Spruce Harbor Medical Center came to look at the board (to confirm with their own eyes what rumor had quickly spread throughout the hospital), shake their heads, and shrug their shoulders in complete bafflement.

It was obviously no error. The same two words were written after the names of both Dr. Pierce and his boon companion, fellow veteran of the Korean War, and partner in chest-cutting, John Francis Xavier McIntyre, M.D.

It was agreed that it was some new kind of euphemism, a really brilliant stroke, and one which would certainly add to the nose-to-the-Hippocratic-grindstone image they were all so interested in fostering. The trouble was that no one could imagine (despite some really imaginative guessing) what the euphemism really meant, For what was written after the names of Hawkeye and Trapper John was “HOUSE CALL.” No one believed this, of course … it was tantamount to heresy … and everyone’s curiosity was aroused. Telephone calls were made to all the watering places, golf courses, pizza stands, and other establishments to which the two healers had ever been known to repair for a brief respite from the pressures of their medical duties.

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