Headline Or Hoax? with Dr Steve and Drew Davis

A surgeon opens a chest with a Swiss Army knife he also uses to cut lunch. Sit with that for a second, then press play, because we turn it into a game where your job is to spot the real headline before we reveal just how strange the truth can be. Our “Headline Or Hoax” round pits two surgical stories against each other, and the debate quickly gets into what the operating room is supposed to look like: sterile markers, proper instruments, and the basic safety rules patients assume are non-negotiable. 

Once the real headline drops, we dig into the uncomfortable questions hiding under the laughs. If this happened in a modern hospital, how does it happen at all? What does it say about systems, shortcuts, and the way medical stories get told after the fact? We keep it light, but we don’t dodge the core issue: improvisation can be lifesaving in rare moments, and it can also be reckless when the right tools should be a few steps away. If you like medical humor with a side of surgical ethics and “wait, seriously?” news, this one’s for you. 

Then we shift gears to pure chaos and decompression with the Ben Buzz Battle, our spin on the classic Operation-style challenge. A guest has 60 seconds to remove as many “ailments” as possible before the buzzer punishes every shaky move, and the play-by-play spirals into laughs, nerves, and surprisingly relatable pressure. We wrap by comparing surgeons and comedians, because the world is much more comfortable with a surgeon doing jokes than a comedian doing surgery, for obvious reasons. 

If you enjoyed the mix of healthcare commentary, headline games, and stress-relief laughs, subscribe, share this with a friend who loves weird true stories, and leave a quick review with the headline that fooled you most.

This episode was produced by Angie Debelak with post-production editing by Ben Hill Sound.

Thanks for listening to Dr Ben and Friends.  Laughter is the best medicine...unless you're treating bowel or bladder incontinence.  See you next time!

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Transcript

Headline Or Hoax Setup

Speaker 0:09

All right, folks, now is the time for Headline or Hoax. That portion of the podcast where I read two headlines, and you, the listener, and the guests, will decide which one is a true headline and which one is a hoax. Alright, we got honorary Dr. Drew and Dr. Steve ready here for headline or hoax. I'm gonna read two headlines, one or two, and you tell me which one's real and which one is a hoax. So are you writing down like the number we think is the hoax or the true? Uh write the one that you feel is the headline, the real yes, good question. And you listener, you decide which one's the real headline. Number one. Dr. Steve already knows the answer. All right, headline one is surgeon operated with pen knife, he uses to cut up lunch. Surgeon operates with pen knife, he uses to cut up lunch. Headline number two is LA surgeon uses lipstick instead of a surgical marker for incision line. LA surgeon uses lipstick instead of surgical marker for incision line. Let's think about those things. Now as a surgeon, we do have to use a surgical marker, oftentimes to mark the operative site or mark a incision line. Alright. Let's uh give the listener three seconds to make their final deduction. Alright, and let's do a little uh uh debate here. Uh what are you guys uh thinking about uh which one's a headline and which one's a hoax. I mean it's so obvious to me. So obviously. Uh the second one about the like the Dr. Lipstick. Well, because you just you s from what I've heard about LA people, from what I've seen on like influencers and TikTok and like they are not shy about how they use their like makeup and lipstick and stuff like that. I could see something like this is a good idea. So maybe if it's lip liner, maybe they use that to mark there. But like if it's true lipstick, it lipstick would like be a better like uh pen replacement. Lipstick's long. All I know is the markers that we use to mark for surgery are sterile. Right. They are. Well, maybe you should try lipstick. It might be probably good, right? Yeah. Type of deal. I I thought number one Okay, why is that? I guess now again, I'm thinking that this is some third world out in the Congo type of thing that that some surgeon is, you know, whatever would eat his lunch on some mission trip or whatever. And next thing you know, they don't have a scalpel or a knife and has to do some type of gotta do what you gotta do. It's the thing from like MASH with uh radar and the the Tom Mix pen knife type type of thing. So you went with show your answers. I went with number I went with number one. I went with number two, which was the correct one. There probably is all right. Are you ready, listener, for the big reveal?

Real Headline Revealed

Speaker 3:17

Alright, so the actual headline was that a surgeon performed surgery with a pen knife who uses to cut his lunge. Can you believe that, folks? There you go. You win someone, you lose some. There you go, right there. Number one, right there. And this wasn't uh actually in a third world country, unless you consider England a third world country. Depends on the day you win. This was in uh Sussex, where Brighton and Hove is, and a surgeon utilized a Swiss Army knife that he uses to cut his lunch to perform thoracotomy, which listener is opening a chest with a Swiss Army knife. That was like visually how long did that take? That is that is quite a cut. Yeah, with a Swiss Army knife. They probably replaced the clock on the wall with a calendar. How long did that take? Is it strange to me though that it's less weird to me that he used a Swiss Army knife for a surgery knife than it would be if he were to use a surgery knife to like make lunch? Like a scalpel. Sounds stranger to me. You see him in the cafeteria cutting his apple with a scalpel. Oh yeah. That sends serial killer vibes. I mean, they they they have like disposable scalpels. I've cut many of orange in the past with a with a disposable scalpel. Yeah, I mean, you do it and you toss, you're not using it on a patient. That's true. Type of deal. But yeah, see, yeah. Could you perform any of your surgeries with a Swiss Army knife? Could I? Oh, like if I had to. For an emergency. Sure, yeah. I need a screwdriver. I mean, I need a power drill. I could get, I guess I need a drill. If I can get a power drill, screwdriver, I'm good. Do you think he just wiped it off on his pants before? Like probably like rinsed it or ressed it. I mean, I wonder if it was like on a plane or something. No, this was in the hospital. It was in the hospital. Okay. So the listener can now hear that anything you need for surgery, you could get at like a Lowe's or Home Depot, like power drill, Swiss Army knife. If if you need to do surgery, man, not released the name of the doctor that this is, but they are investigating a Dr. MacGyver. Yeah. He used a Swiss Army knife and closed the wound with duct tape. Yeah, it's just can't imagine that if he did that on a Tuesday, that he was operating on Thursday. There is an investigation. Unless it went really well. Unless like someone called in, like, thank you. This duct tape's holding together real well. Well, you know, in the you know, the UK they have that dual healthcare system. You have the uh, you know, the government system that you you just sit on a list forever, and then you, you know, if you want to pay, you go to the private system. You get the scalpel or the Swiss Army knife. Yeah, I mean, exactly right. Yes. I have a hard enough time opening my mail with the Swiss Army knife. I don't know how someone opened a chest with that. Yeah. Just saying that that had to have been a real sharp knife. Yes. Yeah. Because most uh most Swiss Army knives like butter your toast with them. Right, exactly. I mean, maybe if it was like a good benchmate or something like that. I mean, that you could open somebody up with. Yeah, I think the real headline here is that's a really good Swiss Army knife. Whatever brand that is, that's the one you want to get. Feel free to sponsor the show. Yeah. But uh yeah, I think Al Capone would have had an easier time filing his way out of uh Alcatraz with the Emery board than this guy trying to open a chest with a Swiss Army knife. Yeah, just push harder. All right.

Comedian Becomes a Surgeon

Speaker 6:40

All right, knock knock howdy folks. Dr. Ben back here again. We all love our games. We're serious all day long. And then we need to decompress. And some of us are seriously funny. Dr. Steve and I are going to help officiate this game. A classic Hasbro game. We have honorary Dr. Drew here. Thank you for that, honorary styles. I hope to make you guys proud. Did you ever have uh uh aspirations of being a surgeon? Not even a little bit, although I I think doctors probably hate when people say this, but I loved the TV show Scrubs growing up. So I love that show. Oh yeah, so coming back. Yeah, that's the uh the closest thing I've ever had to being a doctor. All right, listener. This is the Dr. Ben Buzz Battle. Ben Buzzbattle. Remove as many of the 12 ailments in 60 seconds. And if it buzzes, just go on to the next one. We'll see how many you can do in 60 seconds, and we're starting 60 seconds on the clock. And looks like he is removing a funny bone. Oh, there you go. That counts. He's removing a funny bone right now. Listener. And the listener looks like butterfly butterflies in the stomach. He is going for butterflies in the stomach, folks. Are you shaking or am I having a seizure? Watching this. Oh, move on to the next one. That uh buzz. We got a frog in the throat. Uh-huh. Oh dear. Frog in the throat. Uh-huh. Oh, he did successfully remove what was that? Oh, he is buzzing. The buzz battle. The buzz battle. Okay. We'll let him come back to some if he doesn't get to those. I'm gonna need an ENT visit after this with the sound going through my headphones. Wow. Dr. Drew here is okay.

Comedy Vs Surgery

Speaker 8:35

How many did we get? Well done, well done. Dr. Drew, folks, successfully removed three ailments. Another funny bone, butterflies in the stomach. Another five years of surgical residency. Yeah, you may have to remediate. Yeah, I think so. How did I do uh in comparison to your last guest? Uh well, he set a high standard, Dr. John. And so not as good. Not as good, but uh but I think for comedians, you're probably you're probably in the top two to three percent. Okay, it's comedians, right? I would have a low threshold of you know comedians being able to You really should. We should not be given and that's why more people were receptive to a surgeon me trying comedy than they would be a comedian trying surgery. Yeah, I mean I mean think about it. If you took you know, a plating set with plates and screws in it, and another pan of surgical instruments that had like rongeurs, you know, chisels, scalpels, saws, and you took like Larry the cable guy, you know, get her done, you'd get nothing done, right? He couldn't do anything with that, right? Right. You know, National's funniest comedian can, you know, he could replace a do a reverse shoulder. That's right. Type of deal. Yeah. You know, do you think um you think Nate's gonna replace the shoulder? Yeah. I mean, I know laughter is the best medicine. Laughter unless you're treating bowel or bladder incontinence, laughter's not gonna fix your torn meniscus. So I mean that's uh I mean if you laugh hard enough, maybe you'll I don't know. I always forgot that a meniscus isn't a bone because like maybe we'll snap it back into place. Yeah, yeah. Yes, it is the best medicine unless you're treating bowel or bladder. I did call the incontinence hotline today. They told me to please hold. Yeah. So all right.