Let's pretend.

Okay, boys and girls. Let's play a little game. Let's pretend that you're an orthopedic surgeon, and a pretty darn good one from a medical standpoint.

Do not breeze into my Emergency Department and start yelling at anybody you see. Not only does this piss off staffers who would otherwise be happy to assist you (as advised by Alex the Lion in Madagascar, "Don't bite the hand."), but it's totally unprofessional and just makes you look like a jerk. The impropriety of this sort of behavior is magnified when you happen to be ranting and cussing in the pediatric section of said department. We have a lot going on with some truly sick people - despite what you may think, there is more to most patients than bones - and because we weren't aware of the precise instant at which to expect to be graced with your honorable presence, we may not have had the room set up exactly to your liking. This does not mean that we are incompetent fools, thank you very much, nor does it mean you have the right to pace and mutter and shake your surgical-capped head. You, sir, are old enough to know better.

When I send other nurses and techs into the room to help you reduce that little sweetheart's forearm fracture, I do not expect them to come out in tears or fuming. And when your godly presence is no longer required in that room, and I very sweetly and politely inform you that the closed tib-fib fracture I just received by ambulance is most likely going to warrant your attention, as the on-call orthopod du jour, I do not expect to be dismissed with a flippant wave of your hand as you walk away and mutter another orthopod's name.

I can understand your displeasure, then, when a Hippocratic echo turned you around and forced you back into our department-of-fools. But you still don't get to yell at us, even if you are late for a dinner reservation. You're a physician, and you're on call, so you know better than to expect to leave exactly at the instant you'd planned. When you sputter, "This place is unbelievable" in that snotty tone of voice, and the normally cheery redheaded nurse says through clenched teeth, "You're right, sir, perhaps we need to work harder at scheduling our patients for convenience," she is keeping both feet firmly on the floor despite the overwhelming urge to plant a Danskoed toe between your smug thighs. And when you walk away from said nurse shaking your head and yelling orders, be damn glad she doesn't have a more appropriate projectile than her pen in hand.

One final note for you, Sir, about the impression you leave on our patients. Between your rants, what if a patient's mother told another of the nurses, "Wow, I was just going to say, this looks like such a fun place to work, and then I saw that asshole."