My patient had a front tooth that looked broken. There was just a tiny bit of white part sticking out of his gum. He told me how it got that way. He said that the last time he was in the hospital he had a chest tube placed and they had a problem getting it out. Someone had turned the suction up way too high and so it sucked the tooth right up into his gum.

“Holy cow!” I said, as I stood there trying to figure out how that could be anatomically possible. “Only at Hopkins,” I said. “You really do see the strangest things here…”

And then I noticed the twinkle in his eye as he started to smile.

I am such an idiot.
I wondered if any other of his health care providers fell for that one.