Health News: Surgical Review

Surgeons: "is it supposed to look like that?"

Health correspondent Spray Farton writes;

Surgeons in the UK have been asked not to follow the example of their US counterparts by wearing only a single surgical glove during sterile procedures as a tribute to the late Michael Jackson.

Guidelines issued today by the Royal College of Surgeons make it clear that this technique is to be discouraged. College President Professor Ivor Cutter spoke exclusively to Spraying the Rays:

"We don't want to deny fans of Mr Jackson the opportunity to acknowledge his contribution to popular culture. But by only wearing one glove operators are obviously compromising the principle of aseptic technique which is vital if we are to contain the spread of potentially deadly hospital infections such as MRSA, VRE, C-diff, QPRFC etc.

He continued, "So we are asking clinicians to only use the one-glove technique if they can carry out the procedure one-handed, which frankly is just showing off anyway, and the College has laboured for some years now to counter the unfortunate image of surgeons as a group of arrogant gits who think they know it all."

In the US however surgeons have vowed to carry on with the controversial practice. "Those goddamn Limeys can do what the hell they want," said one contributor to StitchThis.com, a popular surgical website, " but here in the States we owe a hell of a debt to Michael; let's face it, he's kept a lot of us in work over the past 30 years."

In other news: Following the success of the latest Star Trek offering, Spraying the Rays can reveal that self styled Pop Princess Lily Allen has auditioned for the part of Lt Gay Ellis in the upcoming Hollywood movie version of Gerry Anderson's cult 70's TV series UFO:

Allen: hits out at Glastonbury

The part was played originally by part-time Hull City manger Gabrielle Drake who was unavailable for the film version due to her committment to UK soap series Coronation Street, as well as keeping the the East Yorkshire club in the Premier League last season.

Drake: two up front

Next week: Spraying the Rays investigates reports that a "significant quantity" of the radio-isotope Polonium 210 was detected at the Jackson post-mortem, and that the deadly substance has been tracked to "a known UK source."