699: Trimester

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Trimester

Title text: Also, it's not like anyone actually calls up the Nobel committee to double-check things.

Explanation

While some pregnancies are different than others, a universal truth is that a naturally-born baby will always exit a woman's body through the vagina. However, in this comic, Cueball (wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard) tells a surprised Megan that until the second trimester (3-6 months into pregnancy), the baby has not yet decided on its method of egress and may choose any orifice through which to be born, including the mouth, anus, nose, etc. This does not normally happen in real life.^{[citation needed]} The only case where a baby is not born through the vagina is during a Cesarean section procedure, in which a surgical incision is made in the mother's abdomen to remove the baby.

The caption reveals the truth: in fact, Cueball simply bought the lab coat, and is not a medical professional at all - he's likely just an average guy, and may well know less about medicine than Megan does. The moral is that you cannot trust someone simply because they outwardly present themselves as an authority.^{[actual citation needed]}

Impersonating medical professionals, or other authorities such as police, does happen in real life, and is typically illegal. In the US and other countries, it is also against the law to practice medicine without a license, so Cueball is likely committing a crime.

The expectation that a person in a white coat is a medical expert, or at least a scientist, can be seen in the studies of the placebo effect: people who receive a "sugar pill" from a person who has the authority implied by wearing a lab coat will experience a greater placebo effect than those who receive identical pills from a person in ordinary clothes. This leads to more doctors wearing a white coat while working, and due to that a reinforcement of the expectation of white coats belonging to doctors. In some medical schools students receive a white coat as part of their graduation and qualification ceremony.

The title text implies also that in addition to faking being a doctor, he has also faked being a Nobel laureate, on the logic that most people will not bother to verify this claim. This is likely harder to get away with, as the Nobel Prize is an extremely prestigious distinction, and it would be unlikely for it to be awarded to someone with no recognized skill or experience in a given field.^{[citation needed]}

Transcript

[Cueball is wearing a lab coat, and talking to Megan, who is sitting on a desk. He also has a clipboard.]

Cueball: Well, until the second trimester, the baby hasn't decided which opening it will exit through.

Megan: What?

Cueball: We'll hope for one of the lower ones, so it won't be fighting gravity.

[Caption below the panel:]

Did you know you can just BUY lab coats?

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Discussion

You don't need to call up the Nobel committee, just check Wikipedia. Also, how did Cueball manage to infiltrate the hospital? Benjaminikuta (talk) 18:29, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Did you know you can just EDIT Wikipedia? 141.101.104.20 13:05, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

This website and wikipedia are both based off MediaWiki; also that is kind of the point of wikipedia. Beanie (talk) 13:56, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Checking Wikipedia would be just that, checking. Going straight to the source (the Nobel committee) would be double checking... Mumiemonstret (talk) 11:10, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

You could just check the official Nobel Prize listing of Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine which isn't as easily edited as Wikipedia. Or check archived news articles for who won in the year Cueball claimed. And the Nobel Prize committee does have a listed telephone to literally call them as the comic mentioned. There are plenty of ways to verify it. The joke wasn't that it CAN'T be checked, but that people DON'T check. 172.71.166.216 16:12, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

If he were simply pranking Megan as a doctor, he would be checking her patellar reflexes, or looking into her eyes with an ophthalmoscope, or having her say Ahhhh while he looked into her throat with a tongue depressor. The fact that he has chosen to pretend to be an Obstetrician/Gynecologist suggests some ulterior motives. 108.162.219.171 04:27, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

You can prank someone outside of general care. This could just be a prank of opportunity. flewk (talk) 04:27, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The use of the word "trimester" does not really add medical authority. It is basically the lab coat combined with the clinic setting. Most people understand what a trimester is without any medical training. "Trimester" is not medical jargon. -- Flewk (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Very strange. In investigating the justifications (or otherwise) behind someone's edit of the link to "Caesarean section" and the undo by somebody else back to the US-variant "Cesarean section", I discover that the Wikipage (titled as the former) does not have "Redirected from..." when using the other version.
However, I always try to ensure links to the unredirected page (you never know what might happen with Redirect pages, in the future, or certainly less so than with the 'authoritative' one) but also tend to honour/honor stateside spellings as a sop to Randall's leftpondian nature. In the Explanation, at least. (I'd rather stick with my native spelling in my contributed comments down here; ...or of course accidentally, when I just add my own edit forgetful that those across the pond have a Websteri(s/z)ed variant. 'Correct' them, if you will, but don't call them typos, just my having been oblivious to the necessary code-switch.)
So, anyway, I compromised with US (sometimes!) version as link-text on top of the 'normal' (certainly as per headline title) wikilink reference. Making everybody only slightly unhappy, who actually cares...
I could so easily have done worse! 172.70.90.6 10:21, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

"the baby has not yet decided on its method of egress and may choose any orifice through which to be born, including the mouth, anus, nose, etc. This does not normally happen in real life.[citation needed]" Normally????????? IS THIS SOME SORT OF RARE OCCERENCE I HAVEN'T HEARD OF???? Do babys somtimes just leave through the mouth???? I'm dying lol. Apollo11 (talk) 20:01, 10 April 2024 (UTC)