Scrub In, Bubbles, We're Shorthanded

My doctors and I have an arrangement: They don't give people advice about manners, and I don't tell people to cut out sugar and fats. I get sued quite enough, and also I happen to be fond of sugar and fats, not to mention good bourbon and grain-fed beef. Occasionally, though, I hear something which makes me break my personal gag rule on all things medical. Like this: A study at an Italian children's hospital suggests that there may be a therapeutic role for clowns in the operating room during pediatric surgery.

Sure, a title like "The Effectiveness of Clown Intervention in Reducing Preoperative Anxiety in Children and Parents" promises a light, zippy read, and how can you resist the phrase "Clown Intervention"? And once again, for the record, Mr. Irresponsible is not a physician. But I don't believe you have to be a medical person to find this, as an informal survey of my own doctors did, "a terrible, terrible idea."  Why?

1. Clowns are terrifying.
2. Clowns' big inflatable shoes represent a tripping hazard in the close quarters of the OR. (The Reuters story on the study acknowledges this in passing, noting that the test clown apparently "annoyed doctors and nurses.")
3. Clowns are evil.
4. Clowns have a tendency to honk their noses at stressful times, the sound of which mimics the alarm raised by a flat-lining heart rate monitor.
5. Clowns are notorious attention hogs. I want my anesthesiologist watching my respiration, thank you, not looking on in fascination as a clown makes a quarter appear from out of my surgeon's nose.
6. Clowns are barely a step up from carnies. Operating rooms are filled with narcotics. Do the math.
7. Clowns are desperate for laughs. Once again, if it's me on the table I don't want some Korean War vet named Happy flop-sweating pancake makeup into my chest cavity, shouting "Dontcha get it?" and blowing a bicycle horn in my surgeon's ear.
8. Clowns are evil and terrifying.

I understand that the psychological benefit under study applies to kids, not adults. But let me go on the record here and now in case this thing gets some traction and spreads: If the last thing I see before I go under for prostate surgery is a mop of frizzy scarlet hair and red, crazily drawn-on lips, it better be Debra Messing.