As healthcare reimbursement plummets, as malpractice lawyers gain more air time, and as the healthcare industry becomes hyper-regulated, it should come as no surprise that we may need to make our profession a little more interesting and even fun, to get qualified applicants. Medical education, nursing schools, and science classes may need to insert more humor into our education.

Enter Captain Higgins (from TheOatmeal.com)

He’s is the coolest parasite ever… hands down.

Can we do this with Foleys?

I sincerely believe that we can make education fun for patients and for medical professionals to improve learning and compliance. Nursing competencies, docs adhering to hospital policies, students retaining medical knowledge, and patients taking their meds… Let’s make all of that stuff fun. GiggleMed.com will be releasing an ultra-fun medical humor book about infection in the next couple of weeks.

If you have an idea to make learning new behaviors fun, check out Fun Theory… They have a contest open until December 15th.

Nurses, doctors, techs… really all of us in healthcare have had our late nights studying. In med school, it was not uncommon to string together a few all-nighters. I could see something like this emerging at the end of one of those strings…

Umm, yeah… I’ll have two anaphase… uh… one late prophase… and, oh! does the telophase count as one or two?

The original artwork comes from a 2005 photo series by Kevin Van Aelst. And for you quacks who didn’t study… this is a model of cellular mitosis.

Doctors’ handwriting is no laughing matter.

Being a doctor myself, I decided to take healthcare reform into my own hands. Here is step number one… a handwriting course for physicians.

By the way, try to ignore the subliminal messages embedded in this workbook. Those darn administrators and Joint Commissioners always slip stuff in there… don’t they?

Download it here:

OK… The medical literature is too rich with (unintentional) humor, that I can’t help but start a series about it. Medical Literature Classics – some funny things from our glorious past.

This one happens to come from DeGowin & DeGowin, 1977… which is actually not that long ago.

Do you know of some funny stuff from past medical literature? Share it. ==> Tell me about a funny reference from the literature and get a free medical humor report <==

Medical education and humor… funny video where a German physician demonstrates cardiac rhythms through dance.

He’ll probably need to see ortho after those bundle branch blocks. Check it out.

Some people knew what they wanted to be from the very beginning. And just like some people begin to look like their pets, we’ve run into a few doctors and healthcare die-hards who begin to look like their very own area of expertise.

Here’s number 2 in one of the newest medical humor series from GiggleMed.com – a series of doctor jokes and comics related to subspecialties… Doctors of Destiny :)

In the immortal words of Obi Wan Kenobi…

Of course, Old Ben never smoked… and you shouldn’t either.

(Master Yoda on the other hand…. I’m not so sure)

Here’s a link to All of the Doctors of Destiny Comics up ’til now

Some people eat, sleep, and drink medicine… eat, sleep, and drink nursing… eat, sleep, and drink surgery… or whatever their healthcare field is. They seemed to know what they wanted from the very beginning.

And these people can stress you out quite a bit. If you’re about to start your internship and you are still undecided about your future… or if you’re a nurse about to finish your clinicals and enter the work force… these Obi-Wan Kenobi types can be pretty annoying. (Gotta squeeze some Star Wars references in there… how could I not?… destiny?… Star Wars day?… anyway, click the audio and think of Good ‘ol Ben).

It would be nice if we could know who these people were before they even said a word… Introducing a new medical humor series from GiggleMed.com – a series of doctor jokes and comics related to subspecialty… Doctors of Destiny :)

Push it one more time… you know you want to…

Yes, there’s still some nerd in me. And that side of me came out when I was reading this list of “Silly Named Molecules”. This document is long, but it is conveniently broken down into sections for each substance. Just read the funny names of these compounds and molecules. Then read through the ones that interest you.

I’m sure most of you will read the sections on “Arsole”, “Fartox”, and “SnOT”, but I also got a kick out of “Betweenanine”, “Complicatic acid”, “Constipatic acid”, “Piano stool”, “Ptelefolone”, and, of course, “the Nano-Putians”.

This short, one-minute long, funny video parodies that internal competitive streak found among all of the healthcare professions. Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, OR techs, house staff, and EMTs all have this phenomenon of “one-upmanship” when telling stories. Whether it is telling funny stories or recounting the events of a code or bragging about accomplishments, there’s always someone with something a little funnier, a little more disgusting, or a little more alarming. Check out this comical video: