Memo to Stupid People:

Before I forget: the Fashion Edition

To that nice nurse in the recovery room:

Isn't it lovely to be young? Isn't it lovely to have a flat stomach with a rhinestone belly-button piercing and a sacral tattoo of a Celtic knot?

Yes, it is. It is lovely to be and to have all those things.

But it is not lovely at work. If you persist in wearing hipster scrub pants and shirts that are a fraction too short, thus allowing all and sundry to see your rhinestones and tattoos, I will be forced to point and laugh.

To the pleasant nurse who works next to me three days a week:

I understand that your nails are brittle and delicate. I understand that you place a high value on your personal appearance. But I don't understand why, given those things, you continue to wear acrylic nails.

Not just acrylics (which, by the way, aren't really allowed in patient-care settings), but acrylics that have grown out, leaving a big gap between the cuticle and the fake part of the nail. That just screams bacteria to me.

Please. Take them off. Wear your nails short and neat, like the rest of us do. Or, if you must keep the acrylics, have them filled once in a while.

And, for the love of God, stop painting them green.

To the gorgeous belly surgeon I know:

Love your 'do. Really. I love the French twist in the back and how it comes down into little stair-stepping teacups on the left side. I love the braids in the front and the tiny curlicues that outline your forehead and cover your ears. But it's been three weeks now, and you don't sleep good. Things are starting to sprout out of your French twist, and the teacups are starting to look more like styrofoam cups.

Maybe something a little more low-maintenance would be good.

To the pleasant, if unkempt, neurosurgeon who put a lumbar drain in my patient the other day:

You've made progress. Thank you. I notice that you're keeping your hair neat and your nails short, which is huge. Honest. I appreciate that you're shaving at least weekly. Nobody likes the "House" look on a resident, and you're cleaning up nicely.

But there's one remaining issue we have to discuss, my friend. It's scrubs.

Surgical scrubs are thin. They're baggy. They tend to ride up in odd spots.

Do you see what I'm getting at, here?

Underwear. Buy it. Wear it. Save the rest of us some trauma.