This May Sting a Little

This blog has previously gone on record with the claim that Joy Behar talking makes the whole world stupider.

Ms. Behar, once a co-host of The View who failed in her own talk show, has been doing a stint on her former gig and decided to try to prove me right. In a discussion of the Miss America pageant that aired earlier this week, she and the other hosts talked about Miss Colorado, a nurse named Kelley Johnson who for her talent used a patient's e-mail to her as a monologue. Miss Johnson works primarily with Alzheimer's patients.

What seemed to mystify Ms. Behar was why Miss Johnson, in addition to her nursing scrubs, was wearing what the host called "a doctor's stethoscope." Many nurses promptly called her out for being an idiot, although to judge by the ones posting on my Facebook news feed they were rendering that as an opinion only and not a professional diagnosis.

The nurses helpfully pointed out that many nurses in both hospitals and doctor's offices check patients' vital signs and examine them before they are seen by a doctor, and they use things like stethoscopes to do so. Should Ms. Behar be in need of medical attention any time soon, the chances are that the first person who examines her will be a nurse, and probably one who has just held his or her hands in an ice bucket for as long as he or she could stand before beginning the exam.

Said nurse will use a stethoscope and perhaps several other "doctor's instruments" in that examination, all of which are likely to have been well-cooled also. But probably not an otoscope, because all they'll see through it is what's on the other side of Ms. Behar's head and that won't tell them much more than they already know about what's wrong with her.

ETA: I've seen several people point out that it's likely that whatever nurses Ms. Behar encountered in any medical appointments she has had in recent years would have been using "doctor's stethoscopes" as well. This means that she has either been neglecting regular checkups or she has paid no attention to the people helping to treat her. I know which way I would bet, but I don't like her so that may not be a good guide for you to follow.