A spoonful of humor helps the medicine go down

A family physician in Maine, publisher of the Placebo Journal, uses his wit to keep doctors in stitches.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Feb. 3, 2003.

The Doctor is Out
A look at physician lives outside the exam room. In the office, time is a precious commodity for today's busy physicians. Away from work, many doctors find unique activities and hobbies to help them unwind and to enrich their lives.

Douglas Farrago, MD, has an idea for a new product.

Cameloft.

It's a combination cigarette and popular antidepressant.

"You get your nicotine and your antidepressant in one," Dr. Farrago said. "Hell, you're not going to quit smoking anyway."

Sound like a tasteless idea? That's the point.

Dr. Farrago pitches the picker-upper in a phony advertisement in the February issue of his publication, Placebo Journal.

Goofy gags like that are the heart, or funny bone, of Dr. Farrago's journal -- his colorful attempt to brighten doctors' days with a healthy dose of humor.

"It's hard as a doctor. We get the life sucked out of us, and no one is pouring it back into us," said Dr. Farrago, 38, a family physician in Auburn, Maine. "Doctors need a chance to vent and have some humor. It's a way to make physicians laugh and show them they're not alone.

"It keeps us sane by being insane sometimes."

Placebo Journal's targets are everything and anything in medicine: Doctors. Patients. And what Dr. Farrago calls the "medical axis of evil" -- HMOs, medical liability insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

"This journal is psychotherapy I desperately need but that my HMO keeps rejecting."

In one column, PJ, a fictional physician, explains what gifts from drug company representatives are acceptable (a Happy Meal with prize is not acceptable).

Then there's a Top 10 list on Ways to Get "Hunkered-Down" Patients out of the Hospital (#10: Have nurse attempt to insert largest size urethral catheter they can find).