PROFESSIONExam room comedy best used with cautionCareful use of humor can humanize physician encounters with patients.By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. May 24/31, 2004. When a husband and wife walk into his exam room, orthopedic surgeon John D. Kelly, MD, may ask the man: "Is this your older daughter or the middle one?" The wife usually laughs, and Dr. Kelly succeeds at putting his patients at ease. One time, though, a husband didn't think it was funny and blurted, "It's my wife, damn it." That humor mishap hasn't changed Dr. Kelly's belief that a little levity relaxes patients and helps build a connection. But in these highly litigious times, in which, thanks to managed care, the physician-patient relationship is often short-term and unstable, physicians are being more careful about pulling their punch lines. To joke or not to joke, that is the question. Laughter may be the best medicine in some cases. "Sometimes it's easier to put things in perspective with a little joke here and there. It's a wonderful tool in making people happy. That alone is a reason for using it," said Dr. Kelly, vice chair of orthopedic surgery at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. A 1997 Journal of the American Medical Association study on physician-patient communication said primary care physicians with no medical liability claims laughed and used humor more often during patient visits than did primary care physicians who had claims filed against them. The researchers concluded that how a doctor says something may be as important as what is said. An article in the April 26 Archives of Internal Medicine takes a serious look at humor in the physician-patient encounter. It notes that while some experts say humor is therapeutic, there is little evidence to support the idea that it has a significant effect on physical disease. However, the authors say humor is a useful coping and defense mechanism that helps people handle emotional conflict and reduce stress. [...]Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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