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But this really happened to a real pizza delivery guy and a group of hospital doctors who ordered the pizza, leading one of those doctors to ask Northwestern University bioethicist Katie Watson a question: “Was it wrong to make the joke?”
Watson, writing in a report for the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank in Garrison, New York, answers no. “To me, the butt of the doctors’ tip joke is not the patient. It’s death,” she writes in the report.
Gallows humor is a time-honored coping mechanism. Soldiers, emergency room doctors and nurses, reporters, cops, even families facing the imminent death of a loved one engage in gallows humor, much of it utterly unprintable here. One of the funniest people I know worked as a “death counselor” for the terminally ill and tragically injured, and it was amazing what she could do with material like stab wounds and brain cancer.
In the case of the doctors, when they found the pizza man, they struggled to save his life and failed. Yet they had a shift to work at the hospital and more patients to help. Cracking a joke, as crass as it may seem upon reflection, helped them do that.
“Doctors are not robotic systems for healthcare delivery,” Watson said in an interview. “They are human beings. Yet they are expected to behave as if vomit doesn’t smell, and death is not scary.”
Some of what Watson calls “backstage” humor -- jokes and stories told among doctors, or teachers in a teachers’ lounge, or war reporters in a bar -- is a way to relieve tension and excise demons.
Which is not to say it’s always OK. Watson believes doctors, or anybody else, should be guided by the thought of harm. Who will a joke hurt? Is the humor making somebody a punching bag when a doctor’s real anger is toward, say, his or her boss? Could future patients be harmed in any way?
Of course not all doctors, or reporters, or school teachers, or firefighters, want to publicize the fact that they make cracks behind closed doors at all. One surgeon, Watson said, “was upset with me for discussing it outside the healthcare profession. She worried it would make patients trust doctors less.”
To which we say -- nyuk, nyuk, nyuk – give us the doctor who laughs.
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I understand the gallows humor.... it is a way of dealing and moving on. Most of us have done exactly the same thing.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I switched OBGYNs because she didn't understand my twisted sense of humor. My new doctor did.
I found out I was to have a C-section and was devestated. My doctors first response, "Well at least you won't have to have an episiotomy now." Of course it was crude, but I laughing instead of crying.
When he was cutting my stomach open during my C-section he said, "Well, I was supposed to be home at 5 o'clock to go to a dinner with my wife... I guess that is out now. But at least I can say I delivered a healthy baby boy today." And the other surgeon said, "Yeah, but that only works so many times." Because they were joking over my opened abdomen, I knew everything was going smoothly.
In short, I don't know anyway better than humor to deal with stress.
When I was a reporter, I covered a city with a lot of crime. One detective used to call me at home in the evening if a big story came up. Once, for three evenings in a row, I appeared in the newsroom with a murder story. When I showed up the fourth evening because one of the perpetrators had been arrested, an editor caught sight of me and shouted out, "Here's Jan, somebody must be dead."
Katie Watson lifted her thesis from a M.A.S.H episode.
I'm a RN for an acute psychiatric hospital and I can definately say this is so true. Mental Health is still very much stigmatized, including its staff. We see a lot of the horrors of humanity and one of our few outlets is dark humor. I can definetly say that we all have a pretty great sense of humor though. Doing this line of work you have to or you'll end up on the otherside of the desk with the patients.
When I worked for a psychiatric hospital in Texas, I joked with the staff that for extra money for the patient fund we could sell fruit cakes. We could have the bipolar--really high on one side, flat on the other; the schizophrenic with no definable shape, etc.
In this: "Some of what Watson calls “backstage” humor -- jokes and stories told among doctors, or teachers in a teachers’ lounge, or war reporters in a bar -- is a way to relive tension and excise demons."
My guess is you mean "relieve", but could be wrong.....
Hey there! You're totally right. Fixing. Thanks!
very nicely written! At first, I was worried it would be another "doctors are bad" article. I'm glad to see people understand.
I used to work for doctors, and there was lots of this humor flying around the office. It's okay. It helps people cope. Doctors joked during my C-sections also. I didn't mind.
I've got the same dark sense of humor. A coworker / friend of mine was late to work due to an accident. He had witnessed the aftermath of the car accident, and saw a dead body on the side of the road. The next morning, hoping to make him smile a little, I commented, "You're on time today, no bodies holding up traffic?" It was not received well at ALL. But that's the sense of humor I have. I need to laugh about things like that in order to deal with it. Obviously I was reminded that not everyone has that humor.
My best friend and I have the same sense of humor. When the docs took half of my colon (due to colon cancer) my friend walks in to visit a few days later and says, "what's up, semi-colon?" Almost split my stitches.
That's terrific! You can sign your name with a punctuation mark. :-D
The morning I went in for a Colonoscopy I showed everyone a recent comic strip that joked about having a colonoscopy.
In 2001 I was diagnosed with invasive malignant melanoma on my back and I had to lay face down on the table while my doctor, whose voice betrayed her obvious concern, tried to excise it. I asked "Doc, how long have I got?" She said, "You know Gary, there are choices like surgery and chemotherapy, we'll just have to see." I said, "No Doc.... how long have I got to lay on this frickin' table?"
My Primary Care Physician has to listen to groaning, moaning, complaining all day... dreadful job. I always try to be upbeat. So, he and I were wrapping up a routine physical exam:
"I hope I'm in as good health when I'm your age," doc said. (I'm in my 7th decade), "be sure to call me if anything goes wrong." "Thanks, Doc, will do, especially if I have an erection lasting over 4 hours."
His face was as red as the gums in his broad smile. He needed that more than the billing.
My doctor is also the town coroner. He came into a well-child check for my toddler late as a result of having to certify a death that morning. He checks her over, does the exam, and declared her "1000% healthier than the person I saw this morning! Far less stiff, too." He's always been that type of person. I brought my other daughter in one day for a horrible rash and as she was sitting on my lap, he is talking about what he's looking for to the medical student who was with him. He starts to play peek-a-boo using my daughter's feet, which made her giggle. He turned to the med student and told her, "Little kids love this sort of thing. Little old ladies, not so much." Cracked us all up! I will be so sad when he retires!