Image credit: GoblinLife Vault
UNDER-CAVERNS GENERAL — A sweeping administrative push to modernize hiring practices at St. Skrag’s Cranial & Trepanning Institute has sparked immediate panic among prospective patients, following the announcement that the hospital’s newest cohort of chief neurosurgeons consists entirely of individuals diagnosed with severe, strobe-triggered epilepsy.
Hospital administrators unveiled the initiative Tuesday under the banner of the "Neuro-Inclusivity & Steadiness Reimagining Protocol," defending the hires against a vocal mob of bandaged patients currently barricading the outpatient lobby.
"For too long, the field of delicate, millimeter-precise cortical excavation has been gatekept by outdated notions of 'motor predictability' and 'not violently convulsing while holding a bone saw,'" said Chief Hospital Administrator Blarg Vane-Cutter, shouting over the sound of an overturned reception desk. "By bringing surgeons with active seizure disorders into the operating theater, we are introducing dynamic, non-linear incision techniques that traditional, stationary-handed doctors simply wouldn't dare attempt."
According to internal memos leaked from the GoblinLife Department of Applied Science (GDAS), the backlash began shortly after the hospital refused to replace the operating rooms' faulty, flickering fluorescent ceiling tubes—a staple of regional hospital ambiance since the Third Subterranean Cholera Wave.
Critics argue that pairing high-frequency flickering lighting with surgeons holding rotary drills inside open skulls represents a conflict of interest.
"Look, I’m all for equal opportunity, I let a guy with no depth perception do my taxes last year," said local resident Grik "Half-Dome" Spittle, who was scheduled for a routine frontal lobe scraping on Thursday before canceling his appointment. "But when my doctor walked into the pre-op consultation, caught a glimpse of a blinking pager light, and accidentally autographed my spleen with a scalpel, I started to feel like the hospital's HR department was prioritizing the wrong metrics."
Fellow surgeons from the traditional wing have also voiced logistical concerns, noting that the new hires have drastically altered operating room protocols. Standard seven-hour craniotomies are now reportedly being completed in under forty-five seconds, albeit with what medical examiners describe as "abstract expressionist outcomes."
"We tried to compromise by strapping them into heavy-duty bungee harnesses during the delicate dura-mater separation phase," explained Head Nurse Fizzle Wart-Thumb. "Unfortunately, when the heart rate monitor starts blinking too fast, it triggers a chain reaction. Last Tuesday, Dr. Twitch-Socket went into a grand mal episode mid-lobotomy and accidentally invented three new procedures, cured the patient's tinnitus, and severed the main power cable to the ICU."
Despite the mounting lawsuits and a petition signed by four hundred prospective head-trauma victims demanding "literal bare-minimum hand-eye stability," the St. Skrag’s Board of Ethics remains resolute.
In a press release issued late Wednesday, the board dismissed the public outcry as narrow-minded, announcing plans to expand the recruitment model next month by staffing the hospital’s bomb-disposal and nitroglycerin-transport unit exclusively with sufferers of chronic narcolepsy.
