The joke is that she is so dumb (“How dumb is she?”) that she thinks Boston is in Maine, and yet she’s about to attempt to perform surgery. I don’t think we’re supposed to think about the idiotic hospital administrator who hired her.
I think the joke is supposed to be that the alleged doctor is not only too dumb to get a medical degree, he’s not even smart enough to know what state Boston is in. So instead of appearing to try to be modest about his credentials. he’s giving himself away.
Or maybe he’s just trying to give the poor patient heart failure.
I agree with Boise Ed and ja. The person about to operate is not educated.
It is convenient that they have elf-ears, it helps the masks to stay on.
If a surgeon doesn’t really have a Ph.D. is he practicing philosophy without a license?
So, yes, you’re* about to be operated on, and your surgeon not only doesn’t know that surgeons get M.D. degrees, not Ph.D degrees, but doesn’t know where Boston is (or isn’t, depending on how you look at it.)
*Technically, there is a character in place for this, but you really get the cringe if you imagine yourself in that position.
On the other hand, it IS possible to get a Ph.D in nursing, in some institutions. I’m PRETTY sure there isn’t a Boston in Maine, because Maine used to be part of Massachusetts. But (famously) there was almost** a Boston in Oregon. There might well be “Bostons” in various other states.
**there was a coin flip, and the guy who wanted “Portland” won and the guy who wanted “Boston” lost.
She might just be winding up the patient and her colleagues. She could have a PhD from Boston and simply be joking about suggesting it is in Maine; but at the same time nothing the speaker says prevents her from also having a medical degree from the University of Sumwerelce and being fully qualified to wield the scalpel. Such things happen – UK telly presenter & university prof Alice Roberts has a medical degree (and worked as a hospital doctor for a while) and a PhD in paleopathology.
Her TV programmes are mostly about archaeology, ancient history and human evolution, btw, not game shows and current affairs. Her most recent show was to suggest re-engineering her own body with the best practice from the animal world (kangaroo-like pouches, ostrich legs, cat ears, octopus eyes and a chimpanzee spine).
I’m impressed with all of this equal-opportunity thinking, but I’m sure that the clueless doctor was intended to be male (as indicated by the chest shape and the shadow on his neck, not to mention the eyelashes that his definitely female colleague seems to have, but that he does not).
I’d say it could go either way. Kilby is probably, but not conclusively, correct.
Doctor(?) Clueless(?) appears to be a lefty, and to have brought [his or her, but probably his] own scalpel to the party… there’s no opened tray of instruments visible in the scene.
So the person may or may not be a doctor, may or may not be a surgeon, and may be of either gender. But hasn’t been in Maine, if we are to believe the dialogue. So… nothing is certain.
Which is NOT a feeling you want to be having as they’re preparing you for surgery.
The label says ‘Zurich’, sir.
Yes, well, it was Spain then…
The wide eyes of the patient show that he has heard the doctor’s dialogue. As if finding out that the doctor lied about his or her degree is not bad enough, he is about to be operated on by someone who isn’t even smart enough to know simple geography.
billytheskink made me laugh, then I had to remember if that was Frank Drebin or Monty Python.🐍
I grew up in New York and moved to the Boston area after grad school elsewhere. There’s a quite common error experienced by people who live here, .. others thinking the “MA” in our address stands for “Maine”. That is the first thing I thought of when reading the strip.
Vic Lee has lived most, if not all of his life on the West Coast, so I can see this being his way of showing lack of the basic knowledge of American history. But with my experience with scores of out-of-staters making the MA assumption, I’m not experiencing the intended level of “yikes!”. (however, I DID have a high level when I just now, once again, stumbled onto Vic Lee’s oil paintings while doing a search.)
Typical “joke’s on him” joke.
“He said, ‘I hate Norwegians! Take that, Norwegian!’ and he punched me out but the joke’s on him! I’m Swedish!”
I think there is really nothing here but a study in absurdity. The statement by the Dr. in this setting at this moment is so far out there, that is the joke???
Just another observation about those people who like to boast about how smart and clever they are while what they are really doing is showing how dumb they are.
I think there is an alternative.
The surgeon is playing dumb to entertain either the rest of the staff or the patient or both. (If so, the problem is the same as it so often is with Internet… it’s difficult to convey sarcasm in print.)
Akin to “I see you have branded my son as illiterate. Oh it is a dirty lie, as I married his father a month before he was born.”
re “Akin to “I see you have branded my son as illiterate. Oh it is a dirty lie, as I married his father a month before he was born.”
Cue up the famous alleged (but apocryphal) Smathers speech,
Comics I Don't Understand 
The joke is that she is so dumb (“How dumb is she?”) that she thinks Boston is in Maine, and yet she’s about to attempt to perform surgery. I don’t think we’re supposed to think about the idiotic hospital administrator who hired her.
I think the joke is supposed to be that the alleged doctor is not only too dumb to get a medical degree, he’s not even smart enough to know what state Boston is in. So instead of appearing to try to be modest about his credentials. he’s giving himself away.
Or maybe he’s just trying to give the poor patient heart failure.
I agree with Boise Ed and ja. The person about to operate is not educated.
It is convenient that they have elf-ears, it helps the masks to stay on.
If a surgeon doesn’t really have a Ph.D. is he practicing philosophy without a license?
So, yes, you’re* about to be operated on, and your surgeon not only doesn’t know that surgeons get M.D. degrees, not Ph.D degrees, but doesn’t know where Boston is (or isn’t, depending on how you look at it.)
*Technically, there is a character in place for this, but you really get the cringe if you imagine yourself in that position.
On the other hand, it IS possible to get a Ph.D in nursing, in some institutions. I’m PRETTY sure there isn’t a Boston in Maine, because Maine used to be part of Massachusetts. But (famously) there was almost** a Boston in Oregon. There might well be “Bostons” in various other states.
**there was a coin flip, and the guy who wanted “Portland” won and the guy who wanted “Boston” lost.
She might just be winding up the patient and her colleagues. She could have a PhD from Boston and simply be joking about suggesting it is in Maine; but at the same time nothing the speaker says prevents her from also having a medical degree from the University of Sumwerelce and being fully qualified to wield the scalpel. Such things happen – UK telly presenter & university prof Alice Roberts has a medical degree (and worked as a hospital doctor for a while) and a PhD in paleopathology.
Her TV programmes are mostly about archaeology, ancient history and human evolution, btw, not game shows and current affairs. Her most recent show was to suggest re-engineering her own body with the best practice from the animal world (kangaroo-like pouches, ostrich legs, cat ears, octopus eyes and a chimpanzee spine).
I’m impressed with all of this equal-opportunity thinking, but I’m sure that the clueless doctor was intended to be male (as indicated by the chest shape and the shadow on his neck, not to mention the eyelashes that his definitely female colleague seems to have, but that he does not).
I’d say it could go either way. Kilby is probably, but not conclusively, correct.
Doctor(?) Clueless(?) appears to be a lefty, and to have brought [his or her, but probably his] own scalpel to the party… there’s no opened tray of instruments visible in the scene.
So the person may or may not be a doctor, may or may not be a surgeon, and may be of either gender. But hasn’t been in Maine, if we are to believe the dialogue. So… nothing is certain.
Which is NOT a feeling you want to be having as they’re preparing you for surgery.
The label says ‘Zurich’, sir.
Yes, well, it was Spain then…
The wide eyes of the patient show that he has heard the doctor’s dialogue. As if finding out that the doctor lied about his or her degree is not bad enough, he is about to be operated on by someone who isn’t even smart enough to know simple geography.
billytheskink made me laugh, then I had to remember if that was Frank Drebin or Monty Python.🐍
I grew up in New York and moved to the Boston area after grad school elsewhere. There’s a quite common error experienced by people who live here, .. others thinking the “MA” in our address stands for “Maine”. That is the first thing I thought of when reading the strip.
Vic Lee has lived most, if not all of his life on the West Coast, so I can see this being his way of showing lack of the basic knowledge of American history. But with my experience with scores of out-of-staters making the MA assumption, I’m not experiencing the intended level of “yikes!”. (however, I DID have a high level when I just now, once again, stumbled onto Vic Lee’s oil paintings while doing a search.)
Typical “joke’s on him” joke.
“He said, ‘I hate Norwegians! Take that, Norwegian!’ and he punched me out but the joke’s on him! I’m Swedish!”
I think there is really nothing here but a study in absurdity. The statement by the Dr. in this setting at this moment is so far out there, that is the joke???
Just another observation about those people who like to boast about how smart and clever they are while what they are really doing is showing how dumb they are.
I think there is an alternative.
The surgeon is playing dumb to entertain either the rest of the staff or the patient or both. (If so, the problem is the same as it so often is with Internet… it’s difficult to convey sarcasm in print.)
Akin to “I see you have branded my son as illiterate. Oh it is a dirty lie, as I married his father a month before he was born.”
re “Akin to “I see you have branded my son as illiterate. Oh it is a dirty lie, as I married his father a month before he was born.”
Cue up the famous alleged (but apocryphal) Smathers speech,
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1988-08-14/news/0060190023_1_george-smathers-making-the-speech-pepper
and this MAD magazine example of an even more over the top “the rubes will take this as an insult” oration:
http://gis.washington.edu/phurvitz/outgoing/bustagut/Non-SlanderousPoliticalSmearSpeech.htm