His name is Hippo

It was one of the last warm days we'll have this year. We were rounding on the patients in the PICU, standing over the bed of a little girl with asthma. After he got done listening to her breathe, the attending physician put down his stethescope and picked up the stuffed animal that was standing sentry on her lap. It was a yellow hippopotamus with hippo embroidered on its side.

"Who's this?" he asked.

"That's my hippo," she said.

"What's his name?"

"Hippo," she said. Duh.

"Have you seen the hippos at our zoo?"

"No," she said.

"Have you ever been to our zoo?" he asked.

"Nope," she said.

Turning to her mother, he said, "You need to take her to the zoo."

Her mother laughed a little.

"I mean it!" he said. Pointing his finger at the woman, he barked, "When she gets out of here, you take her to the zoo!" The woman was a bit taken aback. She didn't expect to be yelled at 7am for failing to show her daughter the town's wild animals in captivity. The lecture about the importance of refilling her kid's inhaler prescription, that one she might have been expecting. But this, this was new.

Then, turning to me, he asked, "Have you been to our zoo."

I briefly considered lying, but thought better of it. He would have seen the shifty look in my eyes and asked follow up questions, quizzing me on my last visit. I would have been exposed in no time. I could just picture him screaming about how the only thing that's worse than medical students who don't go to the zoo is medical students who pretend like they go to the zoo.

"No," I said, "I haven't."

"You've NEVER been to our zoo?"

Bracing myself, I repeated, "No, I've never been to the zoo."

"Well, GO TO THE ZOO." he bellowed. "We have a great zoo. When you go, go see the hippoquarium. It's one of the only places in the world where you can see hippos under water."

"Okay. I'll do that."

"No," he said. "TODAY. It's going to be seventy-five degrees! You'll go today." He touched the hippo to the little girl's nose and made a kiss noise. She smiled. Then, he resumed yelling at me. "You'll leave at noon and GO SEE THE HIPPOS."

"Um...okay," I said.



They call this one Hippo...