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Q: Hi Doctor Pezzi,

My girlfriends and I are gorgeous and we've been to the ER a few times.  What we'd like to know is why the doctors or nurses are never attractive?

Anna

A: Hello Anna,

Touché!  Why aren't the attending doctors attractive?  Because you've never been to my ER!  Just kidding.  OK, now I'll be serious.  I don't know if you saw 60 Minutes this past Sunday, but on that show one segment discussed how so many doctors practicing in the United States were born (and usually attended medical school) in foreign countries such as India and Pakistan.  Therefore, unless you find such people attractive, your chance is less of finding an attractive doctor.

And why haven't you seen an attractive nurse?  Well, because you've never been to my ER — and now I'm being serious.  I've worked with attractive nurses of both sexes.  For example, one male nurse with whom I used to work, Larry, was so attractive to women that some of them forgot why they were in the ER and at least one of them went into the human equivalent of heat and made quite a scene as she begged Larry to boink her on her ER gurney.

In terms of attractive female ER nurses (a subject of far more interest to me!), some real beauties stand out in my mind, such as Tami, Sharon, and Karen (who was a Mrs. Michigan).  We also had some very attractive nurses who moonlighted in the ER, such as Lisa and Kelly.  I could go on and list more, but you get the point:  there ARE attractive nurses in the ER.  In fact, all of the ones I mentioned are noticeably more attractive than the actresses who portray ER nurses on television.

However, there are of course many nurses who aren't very appealing in a physical sense.  It seems to me that there is a somewhat higher prevalence of obesity amongst female nurses than in the general population.  Why?  Well, the federal government hasn't funded much research into this subject, so I can only speculate.  My primary guess is that since nurses make a good living, they don't need a spouse to support them.  Hence, in my mind there is less incentive for them to stay in shape.  In fact, I wonder if this phenomenon is partly responsible for the alarming increase in obesity in the general population as compared to just a few decades ago.  More women work now, so they don't need men for financial support as they once did.  Obviously, there are other explanations (people are now more sedentary than ever before, people eat in restaurants more often, etc.) but I do believe that one of the foremost reasons for staying in good shape is because you either want or need a spouse.  I certainly don't need a spouse to support me, but I'd very much like to get married, so I'm willing to work my butt off to stay in shape.  If there were only men in this world, I'd probably eat pizza every day and never lift weights.  The things we do for love, eh?

NOTE:  Anna declined to substantiate her claim that she and her girlfriends are gorgeous.  Perhaps they are, but I'm skeptical because the last person who sent her picture to me claimed that she is attractive ("hot", as she termed it) but looked like the "before" picture in a weight loss ad.  Obviously, some people don't have a realistic conception of how others view them.  I suppose I shouldn't blame them, because people oftentimes have difficulty perceiving the truth about themselves when that truth isn't flattering.  A case in point:  me!  When I was a resident I gained quite a bit of weight (thanks to free food, a never-ending supply of pecan pie, and no exercise).  However, it wasn't until I got in shape (a year after residency) that I could look back and realize how disgusting my bloated body had been.

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