Top 5 Famous Surgeons

Seeing as today was the first day of my new surgery rotation, I thought I'd look at a few famous butchers (sorry, surgeons), and judge them in a manner ill-fitting my status. I've listed them in a Top of the Pops-style chart, with the crappiest being number 5 and the least crap (notice my judgemental tone?) being number 1. Enjoy.

In at Number 5-

• Robert Liston (1794-1847).

One of the most revered surgeons of his day, Liston was renowned for his lightning-quick amputations. He was widely reported to be able to take off a limb in less than 30 seconds, which was necessary because the lazy 18th century chemists hadn't bothered to invent anaesthetics yet. That said, when they finally got off their fat alchemy-addicted arses and actually invented ether, Liston did the first operation under anaesthetic (the patient, not himself) in the UK.

Unfortunately nobody is perfect, and Liston had his faults. He once removed a patient's limb so fast he took his assistant's fingers with it, the poor git dying later from infection (because the lazy chemists hadn't invented antibiotics yet either). He also removed a man's testicles along with his faulty leg once too. Whoops.

Oh, and he was Scottish. Win some lose some.

New entry at Number 4-

• Dr Karl Kennedy

"He's not a surgeon!" I hear you scream. Well, you are wrong and I am right. He is a surgeon, a GP, an obstetrician, an A+E doctor and a psychiatrist all rolled into one, in short, he is the world's best doctor. He actually saved his own son's life by keeping his airway open by cutting his throat open and pushing in a straw. He also gets extra brownie points for seemingly being the only bloody doctor in Australia, whenever anyone gets admitted to his hospital they end up under his care.

Alright, I admit, he has his bad points. He seems to be knobbing some different random bird every 2 weeks, and his grovelling apologies to his wife/ex-wife/re-wife are just nauseating. Also, his interpretation of the confidentiality rule is fairly liberal. By that I mean he divulges information to whoever the fuck he wants, whenever the fuck he wants to.

And yes, he's Australian.

Toptasticly bouncing in at Number 3-

• Dr Samuel Mudd

A firm believer in the Hippocratic Oath, Dr. Mudd was certainly not going to divulge information about the identity, condition and whereabouts of the nice young man whose broken leg he had set and splinted recently. Unfortunately, the authorities seemed fairly keen to find John Wilkes Booth.

Mudd escaped the death penalty for conspiracy to murder by one vote, and instead got life imprisonment. He was confined to a dungeon after a failed escape attempt, but still helped to quell a substantial outbreak of yellow fever in the jail. He died of pneumonia (lazy chemists) shortly after being pardoned.

Sounds like he was a nice bloke. Loses points for having a stupid name though. Oh yeah, and he was American.

Rocking and rolling to Number 2-

The more observant readers may have noticed that this is not a surgeon, but a sturgeon. I have my reasons for this unexpected new entry-

1. Surgeons in general are basically hackers and there aren't that many famous ones.


2. I am getting bored and tired.


3. Sturgeon is a pretty cool word.


4. I'm pissed off that I didn't save Karl Kennedy until last, and I can't be bothered to move his section down.

For those of you that care, the sturgeon is a bottom-feeder that uses a wedge-shaped snout to dredge up the water bed. On the down side, fish suck.

And finally, in at Number 1-

• Dr Frankenstein

If you didn't know that Frankenstein was the name of the doctor and not the monster, then your ignorance is insulting and makes me feel ill. Please resit your SATs at once.

Who can hold a candle to Frankenstein? Nobody. Who the hell else has managed to bring parts of corpses back from the dead? Have you? No? Then don't argue with my choice. Well, until we get proof that Prince Charles honestly did construct himself a new bride using only chunks of horse meat and a bolt of lightning, there is only one winner in my book. Plus, Frankenstein worked "freestyle", without so many of the hindrances of modern medicine, like having to wash your hand in between rectal examinations, and having to actually ask before we dig up your gran's body for research.

A true professional. Oh, and he died of pneumonia. Lazy, lazy chemists.