Welcome to Common Core Hospital

Nurse Duncan: Welcome to Common Core Hospital. How may I assist you?

Chris: My name's Chris Wobble. I was just in a car accident. My arm seems to be broken in about three places.

Nurse Duncan: All righty, then. We just need to do some assessments here to see what shape you're in. As a major health care provider, your health data determines our success rate. Now first we're going to take your blood pressure. Let me just put the blood pressure cuff on your arm here...


Chris: Ow! Owwww!! Hey!! Holly mother of God! I told that arm's broken!!

Nurse Duncan: Sir, our standard procedure is to take the blood pressure with the right arm. Stop whining. Show a little grit.

Chris: Aaaaaaiiieeeeeeee!

Nurse Duncan: Goodness. Your blood pressure numbers are quite bad. Quite bad. We are going to have to address that with an immediate treatment plan. Bad blood pressure numbers are a sign of poor health. Often they are related to excess weight. Are you fat?

Chris: Do I look fat? Look, do you want to just weigh me?

Nurse Duncan: Oh, we don't have any scales here. We find that the blood pressure measure is all we need to determine patient health quality. Let's just continue with my questions. Are you suffering from any stress or anxiety over the last few weeks that might have elevated your blood pressure?

Chris: Well, my frickin' arm is broken!! But that only happened today.

Nurse Duncan: I think we must conclude that your blood pressure problems are the result of a sedentary lifestyle. Please answer the following multiple choice question. Which strikes you as the most likely cause of your sedentary lifestyle. A) Your apartment does not have a gym, B) Your apartment is too small to offer room for exercise, C) You only socialize by drinking at bars, or D) Meal selections at your regular restaurant are high caloric content.

Chris: What? What??!! Those don't even make sense. And I live on a farm.

Nurse Duncan: We'll just write down A.

Chris: What hell is wrong with you?!!

Nurse Duncan: Let me consult my individualized treatment options chart. (Fiddles with iPad). According to our individualized treatment chart, your personalized treatment program is a regular series of push-ups to be performed daily. Could you drop and give me ten right now, please?

Chris: Are you insane? Can you not see that my arm has extra bends in it?

Nurse Duncan: The use of my own senses for diagnosis is strictly against hospital policy. By the way, if you could give me your drivers license, credit cards, and on line passwords, we'd like to copy those for our records.

Chris: Why do you need that information for anything? What are you going to do with it, anyway?

Nurse Duncan: Well, that's not really any of your business now, is it? And I must say, Chris, that this is a charter hospital, and if you are going to be difficult to work with or require additional treatment options or indicate that you are likely to yield poor results that would hurt our ratings, I will be counseling you out.

Chris: You mean I won't get any treatment?

Nurse Duncan: Oh no. You will still be able to seek treatment at the public hospital. You passed it on your way in-- that gentleman in the back of the pick-up truck out in the parking lot.

Chris: Man. Will he take my insurance?

Nurse Duncan: Well, he can have what's left of your coverage payment. We'll still be keeping our full fee here. Now, about those pushups...

Chris: Oh look!! Isn't that Mark Zuckerberg in the hall? Is that a check he's holding?

Nurse Duncan: What? Where?? (Runs out of room. Returns shortly, confused and sad). I guess I must have missed him. Now then, about those push-ups...

Chris: Oh, I totally did them while you were in the hall. Can I have a pain pill at least?

Nurse Duncan: We're happy to hand out pills, particularly if it will make you more co-operative. As soon as we've finished our consultation here. I need to give you a final blood pressure check to measure your progress during our visit.

Chris: Here, give me the cuff. I'll put it on myself.

Nurse Duncan: But you've put it on your foot, outside your boot.

Chris: Just get your data.

Nurse Duncan: Very well..........Hmm

Chris: Yes?

Nurse Duncan: (Picks up phone). Maintenance? Yes, the patient I'm seeing is apparently dead. Get someone down here to process the patient out before it counts against us.

Chris: Oh for the love of God.