Hey, I’ve always wanted to do some sort of McGuyver thing, but doctoring doesn’t give me much opportunity.

Until now . . .

I went on a three day trip to Sacramento with my son’s fifth grade class. Now you are probably thinking to yourself, “Hey that’s convenient for the class. They get to have a doctor along for the trip in case any of the kids get sick. He could bring his doctor bag along filled with all kinds of tools and meds to cover any possibility.”

Well, I usually DO bring my bag of tricks when we go on vacation with my family, but for this trip I was purely in “dad” mode (not doctor mode) and so I completely forget to bring anything medically related at all.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, on day two one of the kids gets an ear ache, and his dad asked me to take a look.

“Hey!” I thought to myself, “Ears are a piece of cake. I can handle this with no problem.”

“Sure,” I told him, “I’d be happy too.”

I reached for my ear scope and GASP! . . . No ear scope!

What was I supposed to do now?

A pediatrician without an earscope is like a short-order cook without a spatula!

So, as I pretended to examine the kid’s ear sans earscope and trying to make it look I could really tell how his ear was doing, a lightbulb turned on inside my head.

“Hey” the lightbulb said, “What were all the kids doing last night? They were swimming. And what happens after kids swim? They get swimmer’s ear.”

So, I gathered together all my reasoning skills and determined, after thorough examination of the kids earlobe, that yes indeed, the lightbulb was right, this kid had swimmer’s ear.

Putting on my best thoughtful look (that intelligently quizzical wrinkling of the forehead and slight raising of one eyebrow that us doctors practice in the mirror every morning) I confidently announced to this boy’s dad what my official diagnosis was.

“Your boy has swimmer’s ear.”

“Well, ya, I figured that,” said his dad. “He was swimming last night. But what do we do about it?”

“Easy,” I thought to myself, feeling a bit deflated that he wasn’t impressed with my clinical ability to diagnose swimmer’s ear without an ear scope. I reached for my prescription pad . . .

Gasp. Double Gasp.

I found myself without a prescription pad.

How can I be a doctor without a prescription pad? That’s the foundation, the cornerstone, the very fabric of a doctor’s being – his (or her) innate ability to cure everything with the stroke of a pen.

Now I really had to think.

Time to put all those McGuyver episodes that I watched in college to good use. No, I wasn’t trapped in a burning barn with no way out, and no, I didn’t have five armed bad guys approaching me with only a paperclip, a spring, some wire and a soda can with which to devise some sort of effective weapon. But my medical reputation was on the line, and I needed to put something together.

Olive oil.

I needed some olive oil.

“Well,” I explained to the dad, “I would normally use a prescription antibiotic ear drop for this, but we might be able to get away with putting some warm olive oil into his ear. That should soothe it and take away the inflammation. He’ll probably feel better in a few hours.”

I wasn’t sure if the look the dad was giving me was one of utter skepticism or complete impressiveness (is that a word?), but he allowed me to lead his kid to the hotel restaurant, procure a cup of olive oil (now I wanted to actually sneak into the kitchen and try to steal some without being noticed, like McGuyver, but the dad had never watched McGuyver and had no idea what I was talking about – so we ended up just asking for some), warm it in a microwave, lay the kid down, and use my finger to drip the oil into the kid’s ear.

As I turned to the dad to announce that my job was done, I see him on his cell phone saying, “Yes, that’s right, I said olive oil. Is that okay?” I could actually hear his wife laughing on the other end of the line.

I said to the dad, “Olive oil isn’t quite what you’d expect from a Sears Doctor is it?”

He smiled and answered, “Actually, I’ve read a few of your books, and that’s exactly what I’d expect.”

A few hours later, his kid was fine. And I was his hero.

Thanks McGuyver.

Dr. Bob