Medics compete for golden bedpan

Published June 3, 2008
By Steve Pivnick
81st Medical Group Public Affairs

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, MISS. -- Nurses and medical technicians from the 81st Medical Group ended this year's "Scrub Shirt Scramble" in a three-way second-place tie.

The event, sponsored this year by Gulfport's Garden Park Hospital, was held at the Biloxi Town Green May 22. Eleven area medical facilities participated.

Biloxi Regional Medical Center won with 55 points. Keesler tied with Ocean Springs Hospital and Garden Park with 45 points.

According to Capt. Hillary Johnston, 81st Surgical Operations Squadron and one of the medical group project officers, "The Scrub Shirt Scramble is an annual community event where nurses and technicians from surrounding hospitals get together and compete against each other in fun, relay-type games. The winning team takes home the bragging rights for the area and the coveted 'Golden Bedpan Trophy.'"

Points were awarded for each of eight events; the hospital with the most points at the end of the competition was presented the trophy.

The competition had eight events. There was a T-shirt design contest and "Aim Is the Name of the Game," in which syringe "darts" were thrown at a human-figure target with special anatomical areas assigned points. In the "Laundry Pitch" laundry was tossed into hampers 15 feet away.

For "Transport Twister," a two-person team had a blindfolded "pusher" guided by a "patient" calling out instructions to keep the pusher in the lane. "Administrators Take Aim" featured administrators who tossed quarters into a bedpan from 15 feet, and "Ace Wrap Shuffle" had one team member with legs wrapped with bandages who carried a graduated container of liquid back and forth along a lane.

In "Bedpan Bombs," blindfolded team members tossed five water balloons to a catcher with a bedpan 25 feet away.

There was also a powered wheelchair race for administrators.

Medics compete for Golden Bedpan