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7/28/99 NEW YORK -- In a 14-hour surgery that doctors called a breakthrough in medical science, a cardboard man with a red light bulb for a nose was operated on for removal of several foreign bodies, mostly plastic objects resembling everyday household objects as well as animals. Doctors from the New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell SuperPower Special-Name Hospital were present in the operating room for the surgery, as well as surgeons from the affiliated Hospital for Really Special Surgery.
Using advanced instruments and never-before-tried procedures, surgeons delicately removed the objects through openings not much bigger than the objects themselves, using only a set of specially configured metal tweezers. One hospital official also reported that a prosthetic rubber band was successfully installed as well, another first for medical science.
The surgery took a turn for the worse, however, when a medical student trying to extricate a pencil-shaped object from the patient's arm cursed loudly as he hit the sides of the open incision and caused a loud buzzing noise eminante from the patient, momentarily surprising everyone in the room and causing one scrub nurse to bite her tongue by accident. This buzzing noise was heard several more times, occasionally frightening onlookers, but also occasionally causing raucous laughter throughout the O.R.
"I can't believe what they were able to do," said Mr. Potat O. Head, a long-time friend of the patient. "I mean, I have to admit, I've had some major elective surgery done to me before, but this shatters all the conventions completely," the potato-man said, referring to his past cosmetic surgeries to replace facial and body parts including his lips, nose, eyes, and wiggly arms.
"Hey, you better not make up fake quotes for me again," commented Antonio Gotto, Jr, Dean of the Weill Medical College, the medical school affiliated with the hospital where the surgery took place.
The new surgical techniques developed for the operation are still under intense review by a review board reviewing the surgery for review purposes. "This isn't a game, you know," said one member of the board, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "And this board, also -- this board isn't a game, either. It isn't some kind of 'board-game', buddy."
The full results the operation will appear in the prestigious medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, pending peer review, several bribes, and the firing of a few more editors.