DALLAS, TX—Mrs. Felicity Wainright, 61, was admitted to Parkland Memorial Hospital on Thursday morning for a scheduled surgery to have part of her liver removed. She reports that the procedure started off a little oddly.
"I had met Dr. [Blaine] VanDerHoos before. It was during my consultation. He seemed like normal doctor, maybe just a bit jovial," explains Mrs. Wainright, an assistant manager of a local thrift store. "But once I got there for surgery, it was like he was a different person."
Wainright refers to the fact that Dr. VanDerHoos, who holds a medical degree from UCLA, started making sound effects for every movement he made as soon as she got into the operating room.
"He'd said, 'Hello, Mrs. Wainright,' and then when I went to shake his hand, he put his palms out in front of him like he was pushing against a wall, and then he made this buzzing sound with his lips. 'BVVVVVVHHH,' or whatever. Then he said, 'Oh, you can't touch me: there's a force-field.'"
Wainright explained that she had met with Dr. VanDerHoos twice before the surgery for some consultations, and he had never done anything like that. "I figured maybe he was a little nervous, maybe he'd had a little too much coffee that morning, you know?" However, her concerns were heightened when he stepped over to wash his hands. "It's an automatic faucet, but he pantomimed turning a little knob, and made this sound like it was really squeaky. You know, 'EE eer EE eer,' a few times. But it just kept getting weirder. He made the sound of, like, a crashing waterfall as the water came down over his hands, 'PPPFFFFFFFHHHH.'"
Dr. VanDerHoos, who performs approximately 745 procedures each year, and is in his 24th year at the hospital, continued making these sound effects for almost every motion he made as he prepared for the surgery. "At one point, he even made these machine-like sounds and moved like a robot," Wainright said.
"I was debating whether I should cancel the whole thing until I could figure out what was going on with him, but before I could say anything, he poked my hand to start the I.V. line. For that, he made a sound like he was popping a balloon, and it was flying everywhere as the air escaped. 'PSHHHHHhhhhplbpb.'" Mrs. Wainright rolled her eyes in disgust.
"He asked me to count down from 10, so by then I knew it was too late. I said the Lord's Prayer in my mind real quick, and then he said, 'In fact, try counting down in like a Chinese accent,' he said. Well, I don't think I said a word, but then I was out."
Staff who assisted with the procedure spoke under the condition of anonymity. "Yeah, [Dr. VanDerHoos] is a little unconventional," said one staff member. "His favorite is when he's making the first cut. He takes the scalpel and pretends he's starting up a chainsaw, but like, it's having some trouble starting, you know? 'Brrrr...Brrr...' And then after a few tries, he finally gets it roaring. 'BRRHRHRRHR!' That's the sound he makes as he making the incision. Like he's cutting through a tree, I guess."
"It was kind of funny the first time," added the witness, who has worked with the surgeon for approximately 6 years.
This ritual of providing sound effects to accompany his operations is reportedly a normal practice for Dr. VanDerHoos, who makes $130,000 annually. Another witness relates an incident in 2013 with which they assisted. "Yeah, I'd worked with him on a lot of routine operations. He's good at what he does, so we all just sort of go with the flow. But this one patient did not respond well to the anesthesia, I guess. Long story short, she flatlined." The witness explains that he was devastated for a moment, but was then surprised by Dr. VanDerHoos's reaction. "So he called it, and then turned off the monitor to stop the noise. We were all tense, you know? You're never sure how the surgeon is going to react after a patient dies under their knife. Well, so he turned to us, took a deep breath, and then made the little 'disappointed' jingle from that gameshow, The Price is Right. You know, the one that plays that tuba tune after a contestant loses a game. 'Bum bum bum bum, whaaa.'"
The hospital administration admit that the surgeon has received a few complaints from patients and coworkers. However, they declined to comment on his behavior aside from an emailed statement that read in part, "We at Parkland Memorial Hospital value the diverse personalities among our employees."
When invited to comment on his unconventional practices, Dr. VanDerHoos said, "Yeah, we surgeons all have little things we do to keep calm, I suppose. Some of us play golf on the weekend, some of us take up the violin, and some of us pretend that we're lacing up a pair of ice skates while we're sewing our patients back together."