Unnecessary Surgery Merit Badge By Chris Clark

Scouts with a taste for medicine and anatomy have been rather limited in the past. With merit badges such as Dentistry, Genealogy, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, and Public Health, the experimental and horrifying habits of young Frankensteins always went unnoticed. Those days are over!

Requirements for Unnecessary Surgery Merit Badge:

	1.		Compile a set of surgical tools. Name the different tools and their uses for your counselor. Have at least 15 modern tools and 5 tools from a period of surgery in the 1800's or earlier.
	2.		Do Two of the following: a. Visit an Operating Room in a hospital in your community. Talk to the surgeons there on ethics in surgery and write a report for your counselor on what you learned. b. Become an intern in an Operating Room in a hospital in your community for one week. Get fired by removing a vital organ from a patient's body without permission. c. Break into an Operating Room in a hospital in your community and steal whatever you can.
	3.		Construct a crude Operating Room in your basement or kitchen. Be sure to include as much machinery and medical devices as you can.
	4.		Discuss possible ways of replacing the following organs/body parts in human beings: a. Heart b. Lungs c. Stomach   d. Liver   e. Tongue   f. Big Toe (on the left foot)   g. Eyelashes
	5.		Using items around your home, create a football-sized dialysis machine. Using a friend or fellow boy scout, transplant the machine replacing one or both kidneys.
	6.		Harvesting organic matter from morgues and pet cemeteries, piece together a horrifying, half-dead monster. Include at least two vital organs taken from a dog, cat, or other domesticated animal. When finished, release your monster on your community. Write a report for your counselor on the quantity and magnitude of the carnage you've created.
	7.		Discuss three possible careers in surgery, unnecessary or legitimate. Tell what classes you might take to prepare for such careers.

Scouts have already begun earning this fine merit badge, much to the dismay of hospitals in those regions. In fact, certain city governments have already ruled this badge unfit for a clean, moral lifestyle and are petitioning the Boy Scouts of America.

Are you an eager Boy Scout with an itch to tear through human flesh? This may be the badge for you. Contact your council office for an official merit badge pamphlet (shown right) complete with the requirements listed above and plenty of information on the many facets of unnecessary surgery.

Happy Scouting!

-Chris Clark