Patty Wooten presents ...

Nurses recognize, appreciate, and use humor. They create comedy and laugh robustly. What about our professional colleagues in medicine? Nurses frequently refer to physicians as sources of their stress or as inhibitors of humor applications in their work. For the last ten years, I have spoken nationally to groups of caregivers about the importance of humor for our health. During this time, I have heard many stories about physicians using humor. I believe we could see more involvement if they had permission, encouragement, and guidance from their colleagues. This column will introduce you to four physicians who are creating comedy through different mediums.

Patch Adams is an MD, a clown, and a family practice physician. He believes that having fun and feeling joyful are important parts of a healthy lifestyle and an essential component of medical care. He has devoted the last ten years to planning and creating the first "Silly Hospital." There, laughter, play, and having fun will be as commonplace as drugs and diagnostic testing are in traditional hospital settings. His Gesundheit Institute in rural West Virginia is being built and funded by volunteer contributions. ("Gesundheit" is a German word meaning wellness, literally "healthy time.")

Patch began developing his philosophy on medical care ten years ago in Fairfax, Virginia. Patients were invited to live in a large house with his family and the medical staff. Patients were not charged a fee, but were requested to offer whatever compensation (gifts, service, money) they could comfortably afford. The entire treatment staff interacted with the patients, engaging them in spontaneous playful activities, encouraging them to sing, dance, and wear costumes. Patch shares that his commitment to comedy and fun arose from tragedy in his adolescent years. When Patch was 16, his father died suddenly. A deeply-loved uncle with whom Patch then bonded committed suicide two years later. Patch plunged into a deep depression.

While receiving in-patient psychiatric treatment, he experienced how having fun and making friends could lift him out of his hopeless state, inspire him to take control of his life, and bring joy into it again. From this healing experience, he devoted his life to helping others discover the joy and power of having fun and being silly.

Patch has just published Gesundheit -- a book about his life, his philosophy, the annual visits he makes with a clown group to Russian hospitals, and his plans for the "Silly Hospital." His book is insightful and an inspiring guide for anyone interested in bringing fun into his or her life.

Patch is sincere, compassionate, outrageous, irreverent, and a very silly person.

...

As a kid, he'd always loved drawing, painting-almost any kind of artwork. However, he got little encouragement from his family; they wanted him to have a "more respectable" profession . . . so he entered medicine (which he now loves). As a self-proclaimed workaholic, Brian started drawing cartoons as his source of recreation. At first, he drew political cartoons, but then realized there was a wealth of comedy inherent in the healthcare professions. After publishing several of his cartoons in medical books, he began creating In Your Face greeting cards and now markets them in over 650 stores throughout the country and by mail. The topics of his cards include family life, stressful events, and medical care.

When asked how his colleagues have received his work, he says the response is mostly positive, although some of the "long-time physicians" think his work is sacrilegious to the profession and that, as a member of the medical community, he has no business engaging in this frivolous business. Dr. Moench has had difficulty selling his cartoons to medical journals or medical product companies. He believes that they are reluctant to risk offending some physicians who have a limited (inflated?) perception of themselves and their profession. Dr. Moench disagrees, "But I believe my cartooning makes me a better physician. It balances the right-brain activity with the left-brain demands of my job. If I draw cartoons during a long and tedious surgical procedure, it keeps me alert and focused instead of bored and dull."

I, personally, find Brian's cards outrageously funny and able to bring a smile to just about any sourpuss. His catalog sells for $5 and has over 100 cartoons for almost any occasion. He will also create customized cartoons upon request.

Yet another humorous gas-passer (maybe that's why nitrous oxide is called laughing gas!), Dr. Larry Thompson is an anesthesiologist in South Bend, Indiana.

In medical school, Larry Thompson sat in the rear of the classroom of a very boring lecture, scribbling furiously in his notebook. At the end of class, a fellow student was amazed that Larry could find so much to take notes on. "Oh," was his reply, "I wasn't taking notes, I was writing a song." That was the beginning of a serious (well, not-so-serious) series of songs which would eventually be sung and recorded by a quartet of physicians calling themselves, "The Four Skins." The songs are about medicine and are parodies of well-known songs like, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Syphilis" (Christmas), "It Had to Be Sprue" (Had to be You), and "Red Cells in the Urine" (Red Sails in the Sunset).

Three of the Four Skins are practicing in the Midwest, and the MD pianist who accompanies them lives in Florida. Because of their busy schedules and an auto accident with serious injuries to one of the physicians, they rarely perform together any more. Larry indicates he has written several other songs that have not yet been recorded. The previous tape, Songs of Medicine, has been remastered, but is not yet available for purchase. If you would like to buy one, drop me a line (see Resources, below). When Dr. Thompson informs me of the purchasing details, I'll pass the information along to you.

Each of these physicians has created humor, laughter, and joy in his own unique way. I am certain there are many others who recognize the comic potential in medicine. We are likely to hear from them in the new Stitches - Journal of Medical Humor edited by John Cocker, MD. Stitches was first published in the Fall of 1992 and will have six issues per year. Dr. Cocker is a family practice physician from Ontario, Canada who began a medical humor journal called Punch Digest for Canadian Doctors about three years ago. It was enormously successful, with physicians noting, "It's the only journal I read from cover to cover." Dr. Cocker writes a regular column for it called "Proctalgia" (Greek for "pain in the ass.") Physicians are asked to submit stories about humorous moments in their practice. The best story receives the "Golden Stethoscope Award." For a subscription, see Resources, below. Oh yes, I must add my personal note: Their journal is not nearly as funny as our Journal of Nursing Jocularity, but it's a great start and probably appeals to the more subdued sense of humor that most physicians seem to have.

The "humor potential movement" is alive and well and growing rapidly, especially in health care. I think this is a response to the threat, changes, and stress we face daily. DRGs, AIDS, health care reform, and budget constraints have challenged us to maintain quality in our delivery of health care services. We use our sense of humor to keep our perspective and maintain emotional balance. It is wonderful to have our physician colleagues joining us in this endeavor.

Resources

• Adams, Patch. (1993) Gesundheit, Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont.
• In Your Face Cards by Brian Moench. Color catalog send $5.00 to :4091 Splendor Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84124 .
• Stitches - Journal of Medical Humor edited by John Cocker. $25 / year. The Mall at the Galaxy, 7000 Boulevard East, Guttenberg, N.J. 07093, or call .
• Songs of Medicine, by "The Four Skins" is unavailable at the time of this writing but is scheduled for release in 1993. Send a postcard to me, Patty Wooten, P.O. Box 4040, Davis CA 95617 USA (or email ) and give me your name and address and I will notify you when purchase information becomes available.

This article was originally published in "Jest for the Health of It", a regular feature in the Journal of Nursing Jocularity.

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