"Because the underwear is pulled up from the back until ... it wedges in."

Being in outpatient medicine means you get to experience a day-in-the-life-of each specialty. Last week I was at rheumatology clinic which usually means a lot of arthritis and back pain. I got to see this interesting case of ankylosing spondylitis--which is basically an arthritis of the spine which will lead to fusion of the joints. Its pretty painful and debilitating.

I went into the patient's room with my attending, who is this bubbly middle age woman who is so awesome that by the end of the day you actually consider rheumatology as a field to go into. After introducing the patient to the doc, the doc wanted to show me some key features of AS. She had the patient stand with his back facing her while she attempted to untuck his dress shirt, which was tucked into his pants a top a white undershirt. She freed the dress shirt, but the white undershirt was really stuck in there and she just kept pulling and pulling and had it almost to his arm pits when we both suddenly realized that she had grabbed his tightie whiteys, and instead was giving him the largest wedgie ever. Meanwhile the patient did not utter a single word, as if this was a standard of care and it occurred at every doctors appointment. Both the doc and I turned bright red, apologized and gave it our best shot at keeping the laughter to a minimum.

For future clinics, I apparently need to work on keeping the laughter to a minimum.