I thought it was common knowledge

It's not often that a medical student gets to drop a Knowledge Bomb™ on a senior resident, so I think it's only fair that I take a minute to gloat.

Myself and the rest of the Orange call team (aka Orange Crush, aka Agent Orange, aka Orange-you-glad-I-didn't-say-banana...all names that are used by me exclusively, I should point out) were having dinner last night in the old cafeteria. Somehow, the conversation turned to Hannah Montana - most likely an off hand reference which I turned into a full-fledged conversational tangent.

One of the senior residents gave a quizzical look and inquired, "Who's Hannah Montana?" And I responded thusly:

Hannah Montana is Miley Stewart. But that's a secret. You see, she's leading a double life: by day's she's an average middle school student named Miley Stewart, but she's also a pop superstar performing under the name Hannah Montana. Miley is a brunette, and she puts on a blonde wig to disguise her identity when she performs. She doesn't want her personal life ruined by her fame. The actress is Miley Cyrus, who is Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter. That's right, the mullet man himself has a spawn.

I swear that is, to the best of my recollection, what I said to two interns and two residents last night. I think I might have also claimed to be the president of the Miley Cyrus Fan Club, Arizona Chapter. Ask Lyle, he was there.

I remember my senior resident, who is med/peds, laughing but I don't remember how the others responded (I was floating away in the children's television wonderland that is my brain). They probably think it's weird that I know so much about a TV showed aimed almost exclusively at pre-teen girls. Well you know what? I think it's weird that they have performed so many digital rectal examinations and question people about very personal poo habits. So m'leh!

Soon thereafter somebody made reference to the Wiggles, and they all turned to me like I was the expert. Let me tell you, I did not disappoint.

The Wiggles* are a group of Australian singers who dress in bright clothes to sing and act on a children's show. They all have higher level degrees in Childhood Education and development, or something similar, so they cater the show towards what they've learned. Kids love their songs. There's all kinds of supporting characters, like Dorothy the Dinosaur and Captain Feathersword.

Again, nearly word-for-word what I told them. I'm not sure if it was my exhaustive knowledge of kids TV or my reference to Captain Feathersword, but they just started laughing. Good times...

So the take home lesson is that not everything you need to know to make a good impression during you clerkships is in your copy of Pocket Medicine. It's in my copy of Pocket Medicine...mostly because I scribbled drawings of TV shows on all the pages. Which was a little awkward when I tried talking to my future nieces/nephews about "Spongebob Hepatitis-pants." Sorry, kids...

And before you ask, the answer is yes - I only wrote this post so I could put Hannah Montana's name in my blog to get more hits from Google. As soon as Google picks up this post, you won't be able to search for "Hannah montana rectal exam" without my blog shining brightly at the top of the list. Ooh, better yet, search for "Hannah Montana rectal Wiggles."

* yes, I can speak in italics