It all started at an after hours gathering of doctors and nurses at the Mountain West Primary Care Conference in Breckinridge, CO in January, and then spread out from there. It started as a joke, actually, a joke that seemed to “hit a nerve” wherever Primary Care practitioners have gathered since. And the butt of the joke, more often than not, is President Trump.
It has to do with a common test your doctor has probably performed on you, the “patellar reflex” or knee jerk response. It’s when you are asked to sit up with your feet hanging off the table, and your doctor strikes your knee with a small hammer. If all goes well, your foot will kick out, indicating that nerve pathways, synapses, and the spinal cord at the level of L3 are in good working order. It is worth noting that this whole thing happens without any signals being sent to or retuning from higher centers, to and from the brain, for instance.
It also appears that people in the medical profession follow the news. In that mode, as the joke goes, a new nomenclature has been recommended for the most violent of patellar reflexes, or knee jerks, that sometimes occur indicating severe abnormalities are present. “Patellar Flexis Maximus” in the medical books.
And the new name for such an event, put forth by these witty medical professionals:
The Trump/Comey Response
Oh, sometimes it becomes the Times/Trump Response, or even the Maddow/Trump Response, especially in Southern doctors’ offices where Fox News reigns supreme in the waiting rooms, but Trump is hardly ever left out, and it always refers to a knee jerk reaction that could be seen, and perhaps should be seen, as extreme if not altogether abnormal.
Not much of a joke, you may think, but a severe abnormal reaction not involving the brain? Worth mentioning whenever Trump is involved, in our view.
Central News Service - bringing you all the news that is central to you, sort of.