Patty Wooten presents ... 
Interview with Don Marquis
Hospital Administrator and Cartoonist
From Journal of Nursing Jocularity, Winter 1996, 6(4), pp 46-47.
Don Marquis is a retired hospital administrator. He has been drawing cartoons for almost fifty years. In this interview, he shares his thoughts about humor and health care.
Patty Wooten:
Tell us about your career as a hospital administrator.
Don Marquis:
Well, I spent twenty years in the Air Force working in base hospitals from California to Alabama to Spain and Vietnam. After I retired from the Air Force, I worked another ten years in two hospitals in northern California.
PW: Don, how did you get started drawing cartoons about health care?
DM: I've been drawing cartoons since grammar school, so it was kind of natural to continue drawing cartoons about health care.
PW: How would you get your ideas?
DM: Sometimes I'd just overhear someone say something that sounded funny. One day I heard a silver-haired nurse tell a new grad to "pan the patient". That seemed like an odd comment to me. Later, I drew a cartoon to capture the image that came to mind.
PW: When did you begin to publish your cartoons in nursing journals?
DM: Actually, until the Journal of Nursing Jocularity, I wasn't accepted in any nursing publication except NurseWeek. I had more luck getting published in AMA News, Medical Economics, Resident Staff Physician and Emergency Medicine.
PW: Why do you suppose nursing was so reluctant to publish your cartoons?
DM: Oh, I don't think it was necessarily the whole field of nursing, but rather the individual editors of magazines. Even with some journals that routinely published my work, when the cartoon editor would change and the new editor had a different sense of humor, my work would start getting refused. It's just a matter of the personal taste of the gatekeeper. I think most health care publications are very cautious about offending their readers and may hesitate to publish potentially controversial works.
PW: Like issues about health care reform, maybe. Have you drawn any cartoons that speak to those areas?
DM: No, actually I haven't. I retired soon after DRGs were implemented. As the administrator of a rural hospital, I was overwhelmed and frustrated by the struggle to obtain reimbursement and ensure financial stability for the institution. It was getting more and more difficult to find any humor about it.
PW: What advice would you give health professionals about the importance of humor and laughter to cope with the change created by health care reform today?
DM: I think a sense of humor is essential for anyone working in health care. It helps you recover from shocking situations. I remember, during the Vietnam war, working in a Vietnamese Army hospital where amputations were scheduled to occur on one particular day. At the end of the day, the nurses and corpsmen would have to process a large stack of arms and legs. This can really shake you up. They would use humor and make jokes about it, just to cope with the shock and disgust. The humor we see on the M.A.S.H. television show is a very toned down version of what really happens in a combat hospital.
I also think that humor is an essential skill for anyone in health care leadership. An ability to use or create humor makes you more personable. It is one thing you can do to make the workplace more enjoyable and keep the employees happy. You can't always give them the pay raise or benefit increase they deserve, but you can make an effort to add fun to the workplace and help them enjoy their jobs.
Don Marquis is a regular contributor to the Journal of Nursing Jocularity. You can see more of his artwork on the cover and the illustrations for the story "Change" on page 6 of the Winter 1996 issue of the Journal of Nursing Jocularity.
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This article was originally published in "Jest for the Health of It", a regular feature in the Journal of Nursing Jocularity.
Feature columnist Patty Wooten, BSN, is also a past President of the American Association for Therapeutic Humor, author of two books related to humor, and a national speaker presenting on the benefits of humor.
