Advice from the medical team

Each night before we arrive in port, several members of the staff are involved in pre-port sessions which are provided to ensure that the shipboard community has the information necessary to have a successful stay in port. Several departments are included in these pre-port sessions but the most hilarious information comes from the medical team. The Nurse Practitioner on board is a complete riot and you just never know what useful yet crazy information is going to come out of her mouth. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from our pre-port sessions:

• Did you know March is Diarrhea Awareness Month? That’s why I’m wearing pink. Pink for Pepto Bismol. 
• For God’s sake, stay away from the monkey!
• We only have enough rabies medication on board for two people. So, if more than two of you get rabies you’ll have to draw straws.
• I don’t care who you prefer, just wear a damn condom. 
• Every time you see someone walk past the hand sanitizer outside the cafeteria and not use it, just think “that person might have just touched their genitals.”
• As we all know, it’s still Diarrhea Awareness Month and some of you are really celebrating!
• Germs which lead to traveler’s diarrhea can be passed through human-to-human contact. So, turn to your neighbor and shake their hand. Now we’ll see which of you use hand sanitizer!

As you can see most of the conversation concerns diarrhea, a common occurrence when traveling through Asia and Africa. I think this ship is one of the few places where you can talk about the most disgusting bodily functions imaginable and no one cares because it’s likely to happen to everyone at some point in the voyage.

We have only one port-of-call left and I can only imagine what the Nurse Practitioner will say to round out our voyage!