Pappy was the unofficial nickname for an esteemed mentor of neurosurgery for many years. He was the senior staff man in our training program and had an illustrious family history going all the way back to an admiral in the Confederate Navy.
Pappy was a firm advocate of causing no pain to a patient. Each new trainee was told about this soon after he arrived because at night we were called to treat all the staff's patients. None of Pappy's patients were to ever receive any injections for pain, nausea, or sleep. Pappy did all his cases under local anesthesia, and all his patients got coffee and juice the morning of their procedures unlike other patients who got nothing after midnight. He was a strong believer in "conservative" neurosurgery. We all learned quickly about what we could use on his patients that could relieve their problems without injections. At that time, the state commissioner of health was a former resident in neurosurgery that had bailed out of the program. The story was told that he had given one of Pappy's patients an injection one night. Pappy had seen this on the chart the next morning. That afternoon while the resident was walking along a hallway. Pappy got behind him and stuck him with a needle. The guy jumped around and asked why he had been stuck. Pappy said, "You stuck my patient last night and it hurt. This needle hurt too, didn't it"?
You'd be surprised at how many medications come in suppository form!
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