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(Phoenix, AZ, October 31, 2017) -- They arrived early this morning with daggers, scalpels, drills, knives and even a heartless cold-blooded robot.
With only 30 minutes to do their worst, world-renowned surgeons at Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, which includes Barrow Neurological Institute and Norton Thoracic Institute, were let out of the operating rooms just long enough to showcase their cutting talents at this year’s annual Doc-O-Lantern Pumpkin Carving Contest.
Nearly a dozen surgeons sliced and diced at helpless pumpkins to create scary Halloween masterpieces before a roaring crowd outside the hospital’s main entrance. While previous years have seen surgeons carve using everything from operating room tools, to a blow torch, to a chain saw, this year brought a new level of sophisticated horror, with thoracic surgeon, Samad Hashimi, MD, attacking his gourd with a surgical robot called the “Da Vinci.” The Da Vinci is a FDA-approved (for humans) state-of-the-art robot with four arms designed for minimally invasive surgeries.
Dr. Hashimi clearly had the mechanical upper hand with the high-tech sculpting. But in the end, it was old-fashioned slicing that brought victory. This year’s winner was carved by Ronald Gagliano, MD, a colon and rectal surgeon, who slashed a hair-raising interpretation of pumpkin-Dr. Seymore Butt performing a gourd colonoscopy to steal the trophy from last year’s champion, Jeffrey Sugimoto, MD., who had created a horrifying vegetarian Alien.
While the contest showcases the surgeons’ creative abilities, the participating doctors also remind Valley residents about important Halloween safety tips.
“Hospitals all over the nation are haunted by Halloween-related injuries this time of year,” says St. Joseph’s Chief Medical Officer and long-time Doc-O-Lantern contestant Edward Donahue, MD. “As surgeons, we know the importance of safety and of being prepared at all times. We don’t want anyone to have a gory Halloween.”
Dr. Donahue, who has competed brilliantly throughout the contest’s 7-year history, has never won the coveted Doc-O-Lantern trophy. This year by a special vote of the twilight organizing committee, he was honored with a lifetime achievement award, and a trophy the height of a headstone.
Publish date:
Tuesday, October 31, 2017