‘We’re hoping for renewed interest from the youngsters,’ says staff
By Klara Woldenga, Humour Editor
The Vancouver Hospital (VH) opened in 1886, beginning as a nine-bed tent and primarily treating railway workers. Though the hospital has grown exponentially since then, and has accomplished great things—such as creating the world’s largest spinal cord research centre—many of the staff feel as though something is lacking.
“I just don’t think we have the respect of the young people,” said Lindy Jackson, full-time nurse at VH. “They never talk about us in their memes. It’s distressing.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about the memes, and the fact that we are never in them,” said pediatrician James Alden. “Frankly, I’m a bit upset; surely we are more important than a frog on a unicycle or a cat that is too long for its own good.”
Despite the low morale caused by the lack of memes, the VH has decided to turn the tables and directly appeal to the youth demographic. Last week, the hospital announced that they would be introducing “Throwback Thursdays” as an attempt to not only educate the younger populations on the topic of medical history, but also to try to connect with them on a level they can understand.
“We’re really excited about this,” said Alden. “We finally get to try out all the horrifying medical practices we read about in our school days or saw on the show Knick. It’s going to be great!”
VH’s Throwback Thursdays will feature a distinct lack of local and total anesthetics, and doctors will be prescribing soda water for mild ailments and whiskey in unlabeled bottles for more serious problems. Doctors will also be required to develop an addiction to a medical substance such as cocaine or morphine.
“We’ve really let nothing slide,” said Alden. “We did our research and wanted to be as authentic as possible while still being hip and cool.”
According to the VH press release, old medical tools have been brought in from the Scary Museum of Pain in order to make Thursday operations more authentic. “We’re not worried about rust or anything, back in those days it was very common for tools to be old, blunt, and do more harm than good,” said Alden.
According to Alden, every surgery performed during Throwback Thursdays must be completed under three minutes. If it takes longer than that, people will bleed to death due to VH’s strict refusal to use any modern equipment during the operations.
“I’m glad we’re going back to our roots,” said head VG nurse, Sandra Billock.
According to the press release, VH Throwback Thursdays will be a weekly event starting the first Thursday of March, and carrying on until 2019, regardless of any negative feedback.
“We really want to see this project through for at least a year,” said Alden. “Only through long, unflinching testing can we see if it really works.”
When told of the hospital’s new attempts to become relevant to the youth, local students told the Other Press that “Throwback Thursday was cool like a year ago,” and “Please tell them to stop using the word ‘meme.’”
