“Hello, buddy, how are you?” said the man in the Boba Fett costume, leaning over the bed of a young boy in a hospital gown.
On a Sunday afternoon in the emergency room at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, Dr. Alex Arroyo, the hospital's chief of pediatric emergency medicine, often wears one of more than 20 costumes when visiting patients. His favorite costume is Boba Fett, the famous bounty hunter from the “Star Wars” movies.
“I love what I do, but it’s definitely hot out there!” said Dr. Arroyo (48), who has been working at the hospital since 2006 and started wearing the costume in 2021.
A diehard “Star Wars” fan who grew up watching the original trilogy with his parents, Dr. Arroyo has passed that love on to his two youngest children, Grayson, 8, and Karra, 6. Every year at New York Comic Con, the whole family dresses up, including his wife, Dr. Sharon Yellin, 44, a fellow pediatric emergency medicine physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. One year, they stepped out as a family in “Encanto.”
“I was the big, strong sister who carried the donkey,” Dr. Arroyo said, referring to the character Luisa.
Dr. Arroyo, who also has a 21-year-old son, Colin, from a previous marriage, was born in Maimonides, in the Borough Park neighborhood of South Brooklyn. He now lives in a four-bedroom, three-story 1920s brownstone less than a mile from the house he grew up in. He uses one of the spare bedrooms as an office and rents out the third floor.
“I’m also an active comics collector, so it’s scary to be in there,” he said of his office. “The walls are full of toys. It’s my sanctuary from the world.”
Ready to rock I wake up at 7:30 or 8. I probably don't need an iPhone alarm, but I set one just in case. It's “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys. That makes me feel good about my day.
The first thing I do is make a cup of coffee. I brew as much as I can in my Keurig. I'm not a coffee snob. I'll have whatever I can.
Chef Hour While the kids go downstairs to watch the iPad or TV, I make breakfast. What I eat often are pancakes, waffles, and quail eggs. I bought it at the grocery store around the corner one day as a joke, and I thought it would be funny to my kids because they were so small, but they really loved it. But it's really difficult to open the shell. There are usually shells everywhere. Somehow, I became the primary cook at home. My wife calls my cooking style “'Iron Chef' on steroids.” I cook the way I work. It's really fast and really efficient, but it's also really messy.
technology modification First I check my email, then I check the hospital WhatsApp group to see what happened overnight or if anyone needs help. Then I go to Instagram and scroll through the Xs to see what happened while I was sleeping. I’m a social media addict. Then my wife and I do a daily Wordle, Connections, and a mini New York Times Crossword challenge. We text each other the results to see who won who that day.
Fight Club I take a jiu-jitsu class at Windsor Terrace Martial Arts around 10 or 11 a.m. I try to go as often as possible, sometimes as many as 10 times a week. I've been doing it for about 17 months. I usually give private lessons on Sundays. I get a lot of pleasure from strangling people I consider my friends. It's an amazing way to bring out the horrors of the world we see every day.
split track Sundays change when you work. I can work one of my 12-hour emergency room shifts starting at 7am, 1pm, or 7pm, or I can take a break. I have work today at 1pm.
Because I run the department, my time in the ER is limited to about 12 hours a week. The rest of my time is spent in the office, managing the busy day-to-day life of running an ER in New York City.
heading I take a shower and go to the hospital. On a nice day with no traffic it's a 6 minute drive. Parking is usually difficult, but not on weekends, which is nice. I drink a cup of iced coffee at the Dunkin Donuts around the corner from the hospital.
formal wear I'm going to start my shift visiting the kids as Boba Fett, so I'm heading to the office to change into my costume. It takes about 20 minutes to get into it and I need help. I had to put in at least 20 different pieces because I wanted it to be as close to the movie as possible. Good luck sitting down or getting through the door!
BOBA Fett is here to meet you. I set aside an hour at the start of my shift to put on my costume and walk around. Because you don't actually work in a costume. Wearing costumes is not recommended, even on Halloween. The last thing you want is for SpongeBob SquarePants to have to deal with your child having a heart attack.
I have at least 4 “Star Wars” costumes, including 2 Jedi and a fighter pilot. I love that “Star Wars” is so universally popular across generations. When kids recognize the characters, they light up and their eyes pop out of their heads.
The real work begins The 1 PM to 1 AM working hours are the busiest of the three working hours. I am seeing patients almost non-stop. On a nice day, he can sit down for five minutes at some point to eat and pee, but sometimes that's not possible because he's running around like a maniac.
I see a lot of fever. For babies as young as a few weeks old, this is one of the largest emergencies seen in pediatric emergency medicine. I compare it to chest pain in adults. Because it usually represents something very serious and we also have to rule out all the bad stuff. In the spring and summer when the weather is nice, we see a lot of fractures, especially arm fractures. Children fall in the park, especially from the monkey bars.
Sunday is a happy day When I'm not working or working late shifts, I do fun things with my kids. They love food, so I take them to Smorgasburg, an outdoor food market in Prospect Park. My favorite place to eat is the French fry stand. My kids love the rainbow grilled cheese, but it looks gross.
Or you could go to grandma's house and have brunch. Then you can also catch a movie at Nitehawk Cinema — Prospect Park. It's good because there is food.
hot dog night When I get home, I'll make dinner for the kids around 5 or 5:30. Their tastes aren't as refined as Brooklyn kids'. He likes chicken, pizza, hot dogs, pasta… My son loves sushi.
My wife and I usually put the kids to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 and have dinner around 8:30. It's usually a more adventurous meal than hot dogs and mac and cheese.
TV time My wife and I watch pretty much everything – dramas, comedies, period pieces. We recently finished “The Crown.” We love “Cobra Kai,” “Yellowstone,” and murder mystery documentaries.
Doomscrolling Around midnight, I lie upstairs in bed and scroll through my social media apps for 30 minutes before falling asleep.
The great thing about working in emergency medicine is that I don't have the “Sunday horror”. My schedule is constantly changing and shifting, so I'm in a constant cycle of “whatever happens happens.”