, who goes by "Doctor Mike" on social media, is a board-certified family medicine physician at the Atlantic Health System's Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey. Watch him rank medical television shows from least accurate to the most.
Following is a rough transcript:
Varshavski: Medical sketches are really like medical memes, just reenacted, and guess what? On today's video, I'm going to be reacting to some of the most popular medical sketches on YouTube, excluding "SNL" because we've done those already, linked down below. But first I have a major announcement for you.
I am looking to hire another editor. We want you to join the team. All the qualifications and information are listed down below in the description. If you think you're right for the job, shoot me an email. By the way, if you get this video to 100,000 likes, I might make a medical sketch of my own.
Dr. Edith Celburne: Hello, patient. I'm Dr. Edith Celburne.
Male Patient 1: Hi, Dr. Celburne.
Dr. Celburne: You're about to undergo an operation to remove your appendix. Just like this patient here, you'll be under anesthesia and completely unconscious.
Male Patient 1: He doesn't look unconscious.
Male Patient 2: Actually, I am still kind of conscious.
Dr. Celburne: I can fix that. [LAUGHTER] There we are, sleepy time.
Varshavski: Why is the surgeon doing the anesthesia? [LAUGHTER] There should be an anesthesiologist in the room monitoring the patient. Like a big function of having an anesthesiologist present is the fact that it allows the surgeon to focus on the operation and the anesthesiologist on the sedation of the patient, making sure that you're not giving too much where you're slowing down the heart rate or the breathing. Here, it looks like the doctor just does everything.
Dr. Celburne: Now, we make the incision right here.
Varshavski: Why are there cracking noises? Why is the mask not up? Why is that happening right now?
Dr. Celburne: Oops. I got a little leakage there.
Male Patient 1: Leakage?
Dr. Celburne: In this case I have made the incision bigger so we have plenty of elbow room to scoop out all the parts of your insides that have gone bad, like this one and this one. [LAUGHTER]
Varshavski: Two salamis?
Dr. Celburne: Not even sure what this is. Oh well, out it goes. Now we'll move some nasty bones out of the way.
Varshavski: What bones are in the abdomen that you're taking out when you're doing an appendectomy?
Dr. Celburne: Oh, looks like some of these ribs won't budge. Time for the bone saw. [LAUGHTER]
Varshavski: Ribs? The appendix is not that high up. You're not going for the gallbladder. You're not going for the liver. You're going for the appendix. It's lower. The ribs aren't in the way. They don't need to budge, and what kind of saw is that? I just saw that. "I just saw that." You saw that pun? Unintentional, but still delicious.
Worst Doctor Ever: We're losing him. Prepare the crash cart and give me 50 CCs of ... wait, wait, wait.
Varshavski: First of all, chest compressions. If you're losing him and you do not have a pulse, this person is no longer living and you need to begin CPR. You don't start saying you need CCs of anything. You start doing chest compressions, even while you're running ... not like that.
Worst Doctor Ever: At first I thought the cause of death was kidney failure brought about by untreated diabetes, but then I noticed the knife.
Varshavski: Diabetes can absolutely lead to kidney failure. So can untreated high blood pressure. A lot of people will say, "Well, I feel fine. I don't feel the high blood pressure and so I must be okay." It's a silent killer, folks. Hypertension can really wreak havoc on your kidney and your blood vessels, and your heart, which could lead to a stroke, heart attack, congestive heart failure, so many issues.
Worst Doctor Ever: Okay, time to test those reflexes.
Patient: Okay.
Varshavski: [LAUGHTER] As a family medicine doctor, I see pediatric patients, meaning children. Seeing a child for the first time, you need to check their developmental milestones, and I remember one of the things I was trained in my med school training was, "Why don't you throw a block like on the floor and tell the child to retrieve it and see if they're capable of following instructions?" I always felt uncomfortable taking that advice, because I'm like, "What, am I going to play fetch with a child?" Like, "Go get it."
Dr. WebMD: Hi, I'm Dr. WebMD. So what brings you in here today?
Patient: Well, you're free.
Dr. WebMD: Too embarrassed to see a real doctor?
Patient: You got me. What is it, doc?
Dr. WebMD: You have cancer.
Patient: How could you possibly know that?
Dr. WebMD: Oh, I tell everyone they have cancer.
Varshavski: [LAUGHTER] I understand why doing this in the middle of the night quickly in the privacy of your home is so appealing, but the reality of the fact is it's almost always going to be inaccurate. Look, don't get me wrong, WebMD does a great job at explaining a whole host of range of conditions, so that you understand when you do get a diagnosis what you actually have, or perhaps how to ask better questions of your doctor/nurse, whoever you're going to go see, but a lot of times when you do the symptom tracker thing, it just tells you you have cancer.
Patient: What if I just say my shin hurts?
Dr. WebMD: See? Told you, cancer.
Patient: I really don't think I have cancer.
Dr. WebMD: Well, nobody ever thinks they have cancer. The symptoms can take many different forms, such as throbbing in head, runny nose, mild cough, stress.
Varshavski: Why was stove burn on that list? Why does stove burn mean cancer?
Dr. WebMD: I'm going to write you a prescription for 10 tips on how to have a healthy summer. Don't forget to bring a beach ball.
Varshavski: [LAUGHTER] I feel like there are articles like that that keep getting popped up and recommended to you, alongside of the little pharma ads here and there, so this is quite accurate thus far.
Nurse: I really think that you should use some Zanoplax. You just take a small dab, rub it on your belly...
Varshavski: Enough with the Zanoplax.
Dr. WebMD: Sorry about that. They're one of my sponsors. [LAUGHTER]
Patient: You know what? I'm leaving.
Dr. WebMD: And who are you going to see? You don't have health insurance.
Varshavski: I know everyone wants to create an AI platform where you type in some symptoms and it spits out a diagnosis. Medicine is complicated. Medicine is subjective. Symptoms are subjective. Pain levels are subjective.
The way people understand medical terminology is subjective, so you just need a human being there. I don't see humans ever not taking care of humans, but at the same time, there are robots among us. So, speak to your doctor about any symptoms that you may be having and have a good primary care doctor.
Dr. Alexander: The Anderson twins have shared a lung for 25 years. Separating conjoined twins is the most complicated medical procedure we will ever perform.
Varshavski: I've actually heard ... I don't know if this is accurate. I could be spreading misinformation. Someone needs to fact check me on this. Doing a full head transplant could be the hardest operation. See if that's the case.
Narrator: This procedure will take between 19 and 23 hours. If Dr. Alexander will note the time, we will be...
Leroy Jenkins: All right, chums. Let's do this. Leroy Jenkins.
Dr. Alexander: No.
Varshavski: [LAUGHTER] I do understand the reference. That's World of WarCraft. Oh my God, I remember it, and then they all ran in and they all ended up dying.
Leroy Jenkins: Leroy Jenkins.
Varshavski: God, what a throwback. I used to love WoW. It ate so much of my time in high school, it was kind of ridiculous.
Dr. Ehrlich: Okay, let me ask you a few questions. Have you ever uttered the phrase, "Get off my lawn"?
Fred Armisen: No.
Dr. Ehrlich: Okay.
Fred Armisen: I mean, yeah. I've said ... but I didn't mean like old man like, "Get off my lawn." I meant more like, "This is my property, so get off my lawn."
Dr. Ehrlich: I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. You have early-onset grumpiness.
Fred Armisen: What?
Dr. Ehrlich: Early-onset grumpiness, EOG. You're going to begin to enjoy fewer and fewer things in your life. You'll be saying things like, "Who are these people?"
Fred Armisen: Who are those people? I mean, that's a real question.
Dr. Ehrlich: The only reason you'd leave the house is to see classic old movies, and even then you'll say, "It had some good parts, but all in all it was fairly un..."
Fred Armisen: Uneven.
Dr. Ehrlich: You're very young to have EOG. Your life is going to change forever.
Varshavski: What would be the treatment for early-onset grumpiness? Joy, fun, therapy? Maybe I'm doing a little stretch here. There is something called dysthymia in medicine, where you just in general for an extended period of time have a low mood, like a depressed mood, but you don't have major depressive disorder, where you're just kind of down. Maybe dysthymias can be nicknamed early-onset grumpiness. Just putting it out there. This looks like it's like the 80s. I'm getting an 80s vibe. Oh, why would you hit the patient's head like that?
John Cleese: Still something missing there. Hmm.
John Cleese & Colleague: Patient.
Varshavski: Are they doing a C-section? If they are, why are they not scrubbed in? Why are they putting on non-sterile gloves? I have so many questions. I don't know what all this technology is. This is stuff from the 80s. I wasn't around back then. I was only born pretty much in the last month of the 80s.
John Cleese: Can I put the tube in the baby's head?
Kenneth Williams: Only if I can do the episiotomy.
John Cleese: Okay.
Kenneth Williams: There we go, legs up.
John Cleese: You can come in. Come on in, all of you.
Kenneth Williams: That's it. Jolly good. Come on.
Varshavski: We do not do that.
Man: I'm the husband.
Kenneth Williams: I'm sorry. Only people involved are allowed in here.
Varshavski: We do not just invite a peanut gallery to watch a delivery. Actually, nurses probably do the best job at this, at managing who comes in and out of the room. When I was a medical student, we actually trained to first introduce ourselves to the patient, then once the patient was comfortable with us, we then introduced ourselves to the nursing staff to make sure that the nurse can help teach us, guide us, because they know so much more than we do at that given moment, and probably throughout their careers as well.
Kenneth Williams: That's the machine that goes, "Ping." You see? That means your baby is still alive.
Nurse: Oh, the vulva's dilating, doctor.
Kenneth Williams: Oh, yes, there's the head. Yes, four centimeters, five, six centimeters. Lights.
Varshavski: You can't judge the cervical dilation visually. You need to be hands-on with this exam and actually do a digital exam. From there you can get an estimate of what exactly the dilation is. If the baby's head is already visible, you're fully dilated. You don't need four centimeter measurements, like it doesn't make sense.
Kenneth Williams: ... and thriving. Here. Oh, show it to the mother. That's enough. Right.
Varshavski: We do not have butcher knives. There's so much wrong with this.
Kenneth Williams: Sedate her.
Female Patient: Hi. I am here for my annual physical. I haven't been in years because I didn't have health insurance.
Receptionist: Great. Fill out this stack of paperwork that you know none of the information for and wait an hour after your scheduled appointment to be seen.
Varshavski: The reason this happens is because medicine is unpredictable. We don't know what's going to happen when a patient walks into our room. Sometimes a patient says that their problem is a knee, and then we start questioning them and we find out they're having a heart attack. That literally happened to me. I'm linking that story down below. It started with foot pain, became a heart attack, calling 911 and all.
Female Patient: I don't want to tear this paper, but I don't know why I give a shit because it's just paper.
Varshavski: That paper is the bane of my existence. Not only is it incredibly noisy, any time you do any kind of exam it's everywhere, but then also like as a patient like rotates and flips and when I'm doing like a leg exam or a back exam or doing some kind of OMT, it wraps around the patient and ends up like trapping them and ripping. Someone needs ... Elon Musk, we need you. Solve the paper problem.
Click here for my most favorite medical meme review ever, like I really like this one. I think you're going to love it too, so click for that bad boy, and a little notice, if you get this video to 100,000 likes I might make one of my own medical sketches, and I was an A-list actor back in my seventh grade drama club days. Just saying. As always, stay happy and healthy. Memes, click it.