I went in for a colonoscopy. The doctor sat down to repeat his standard informational
exposition.

Dr Laukka:
    What we're going to do is to pass a scpre aud eopwer ropewru uui eruiow
    ruieow riow ieuri ...
    [There are certain medical things I don't really listen to when they apply
    to myself.]
Dr Laukka:
    Now, as far as complications, they are rare, less than a 1% chance ...
Me:
    I'm wondering how many of your patients think a 1% complication rate is low.
Dr Laukka:
    What do you mean?
    [I always love it when I get someone's attention.]
Me:
    Well, if it were 2%, I would know somebody who'd had complications.
    If it were 1%, my extroverted friends would know someone.
Dr Laukka:
    Less than 1%. It's around 1 in 10,000.
Me:
    Ah. That's better. And some of that is from incompetent doctors.
    [I was going to say "incompetent doctors perforating the bowel"
    but I lost the thought too soon.]
Dr Laukka:
    Yes, there's some of that.
Me:
    But we won't have to worry about that today.

You'd think he would have taken that opportunity to say, "No, all of us at Prevea
Digestive Health work hard to be among the most competent GI physicians." But he
didn't. Maybe he didn't think of it, or perhaps he was thinking how glad he was
that he had decided not to go into psychiatry.