Laws of the House of God

A set of hospital rules/truths from Samuel Shem's book, "The House of God". I. Gomers don't die. II. Gomers go to ground. III. At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse. IV. The patient is the one with the disease. V. Placement comes first. VI. There is no body cavity that cannot be reached with a #14 needle and a good strong arm. VII. Age + BUN = Lasix dose. VIII. They can always hurt you more. IX. The only good admission is a dead admission. X. If you don't take a temperature, you can't find a fever. XI. Show me a medical student who only triples my work and I will kiss his feet. XII. If the radiology resident and the medical student both see a lesion on the chest x-ray, there can be no lesion there. XIII. The delivery of medical care is to do as much nothing as possible. See also: gomer.

I thought my internal medicine internship had gotten me depressed, but after reading the Laws of the House of God, I'm downright suicidal.

Laws of the House of God by Dr. Joe August 10, 2004