I've gone from fighting along the front lines of LA gang warfare to fighting on the front lines of the national obesity epidemic. In this upscale community hospital, highly trained professionals devote their days to stapling 2-3 stomachs a day, taking out the gall bladders that notoriously erupt in anybody who satisfies the 5 F's (Female, Fair, Fat, Fourty, Flatulent), and repairing the hernias of people whose insides are literally bursting out of the abdomen at the seems. The days of going elbow-deep into a dying man to pump his heart have been replaced by going elbow-deep into people who are so fat that elbow-deep barely penetrates their abdominal wall.

I'm on call tonight, and this being a level 2 Trauma center, we'll probably deal with some kind of minor trauma in the area. Fortunately, people tend to shoot themselves less in Pasadena than they do LA. More fortunately, the resident's lounge has a big plasma screen TV and a Nintendo Wii.