The excitement was palpable at the First Annual Golden Probe Awards, the Class of 2007’s entry in the ever-popular parade of shows put on annually by second-year medical students at Yale. Fans gathered behind a rope line at the entrance to Harkness Auditorium to greet the nominees and wonder who among them would win the statues of gilded hands with erect index fingers honoring the best in the business. Fans cheered and snapped photos at the sight of celebrity docs on the other side of the rope.
Inside, it was all about entertainment, not to mention the minutiae of being a medical student. The nod for Best Situation Comedy went to Seinfelder XXY, a spoof melding the television show Seinfeld with Klinefelter XXY syndrome, a common chromosomal abnormality. Erotic Admissions took the award for Best Pornographic Film (heavens!), with a cast starring admissions dean Thomas L. Lentz, M.D. ’64, and adult-film actress Jenna Jameson, portrayed by Danielle Guez, as an applicant willing to get into med school “at any cost.” (Line from script: “The MCAT is so long and hard!”) There was even an award for Best Physiology Textbook, pitting Costanzo’s Physiology, a top-rated text for med students, against Medical Physiology by local heroes Boron and Boulpaep. It ended in a tie.
Dean Robert J. Alpern, M.D., made his Yale singing debut with the theme song from Dean Alpern’s Neighborhood, the winner of Best Children’s Show, which evoked the late Fred Rogers, complete with nerdy sweater and blue tennis shoes. The rock band Überstein raised the roof with their original composition, “New Haven Blues,” and the musicians—Michael Martinez and Eric Huebner on guitars, Brian Yablon on keyboards, Dario Englot on bass and public health student Jared Novak on drums—played the four nominations for Best Oldies Song. The titles? “This Glans is Made for You and Me,” by Woody Urethrie; “Doc Around the Clock,” by Bill Frist and the Congress; “Here Comes the Shunt,” by the Needles; and “Don’t Know Much” by Cram Booke.
When it came to the cluelessness that defines at least a part of second year, the last entry said it all:
Don’t know much biochemistry
Don’t know much physiology
Don’t know much about a histo book
Don’t know much about those pills you took …
Of course that will all change in two years, when the singers and dancers of ’07 will have traded their status as resident comedians for the real drama of residency. Stay tuned!
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