The joint worst film ever made is Patch Adams, where Robin Williams, with his hallmark excruciating sentimentality, convinces a bunch of crusty old medical school professors (who understandably hate him) that laughter really is the best medicine.
Voltaire, for whom I have a lot of time, stated the "the art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease", about which more on another day. His short novel Candide is genuinely hilarious for a 257 year old work.
So does humour have a role in medicine? Well, be careful.
Quite a few years ago I did bilateral hip replacements on a rather feisty lady in her 50's. A couple of months later she appeared in the review clinic. We had a nice chat, there were a couple of students there, a nurse, and the patient's husband. Just as I was leaving the room she called after me, "oh, one more thing doctor, what about sex?"
It was a gift really. Perhaps I should have hesitated, but:
"Well it's a pretty busy clinic, but if you want to come back at the end I'll see what I can do."
Luckily, as they say, we all managed to see the funny side of it. 10 years later at the audit review she repeated the story - with embellishments - to a new audience.
As ever, Leo Gordon has the wise advice. In fact his second example has some similarities with the above. Note especially the last two paragraphs:
No comments:
Post a Comment