Bonehead Moment

As anyone who has known me for a while (or was with me in residency) can attest to, I've had my fair share of "foot in mouth" experiences. I even won the "bonehead award" several times during residency. (Hey, I can be proud of that!)

So I figured I'd share the lastest one, from my clinic today, with you all. Enjoy!


I was in my office at lunch with Samantha* who is a career practicum student. Basically, high school seniors can take a class where they shadow a person in the profession of their choosing for an hour a couple days a week. In the family practice clinic, any career practicum students shadow the doctor who is on-call for the week.

We were talking about various medical topics and a new email popped up on my computer from my flight commander. It stated that all the docs were supposed to have time blocked in their schedule for a visit by Colonel Smith*. Being the good doctor I am, I quickly checked my schedule and saw that it was not blocked.

I walked (the whole 5 feet) to my nurse and basically asked him "can you block my schedule for this time/date? There's a Colonel Smith* coming; I don't know who he is, but I just got an email saying we need our schedules blocked".

I then returned to my desk and Samantha* said, "I know Colonel Smith*". To which I replied, "Oh, is he nice?". There was a long pause and then she answered "yeah; he's my dad."


Note to self, you never know who you're talking to! At least the other people in clinic got a nice laugh out of it!

*The names have been changed to protect the innocent.