A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS:
1. DO NOT EXPECT YOUR DOCTOR TO SHARE YOUR DISCOMFORT.
Involvement with the patient's suffering might cause him to lose
valuable scientific objectivity.
2. BE CHEERFUL AT ALL TIMES.
Your doctor leads a busy and trying life and requires all the
gentleness and reassurance he can get.
3. TRY TO SUFFER FROM THE DISEASE FOR WHICH YOU ARE BEING TREATED.
Remember that your doctor has a professional reputation to uphold.
God is dead and I don't feel all too well either....
-- Ralph Moonen
A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of his tests. "I have
some bad news," says the doctor, "and some worse news." The bad news is
that you only have six weeks to live."
"Oh, no," says the patient. "What could possibly be worse than that?"
"Well," the doctor replies, "I've been trying to reach you since
last Monday."
If I kiss you, that is an psychological interaction.
On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick,
that is also a psychological interaction.
The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not
so friendly.
The crucial point is if you can tell which is which.
-- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
Aquavit is also considered useful for medicinal purposes, an essential
ingredient in what I was once told is the Norwegian cure for the common
cold. You get a bottle, a poster bed, and the brightest colored stocking
cap you can find. You put the cap on the post at the foot of the bed,
then get into bed and drink aquavit until you can't see the cap. I've
never tried this, but it sounds as though it should work.
-- Peter Nelson
I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were
wearing masks for.
-- James Boren
Paralysis through analysis.
After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that
brought tears to my eyes. He said, "No hablo ingles."
-- Ronnie Shakes
Better to use medicines at the outset than at the last moment.
As a general rule of thumb, never trust anybody who's been in therapy
for more than 15 percent of their life span. The words “I am sorry" and ”I
am wrong" will have totally disappeared from their vocabulary. They will stab
you, shoot you, break things in your apartment, say horrible things to your
friends and family, and then justify this abhorrent behavior by saying:
"Sure, I put your dog in the microwave. But I feel *better* for doing it."
-- Bruce Feirstein, "Nice Guys Sleep Alone"
“Welcome back for you 13th consecutive week, Evelyn. Evelyn, will
you go into the auto-suggestion booth and take your regular place on the
psycho-prompter couch?”
"Thank you, Red."
"Now, Evelyn, last week you went up to $40,000 by properly citing
your rivalry with your sibling as a compulsive sado-masochistic behavior
pattern which developed out of an early post-natal feeding problem."
"Yes, Red."
"But -- later, when asked about pre-adolescent oedipal phantasy
repressions, you rationalized twice and mental blocked three times. Now,
at $300 per rationalization and $500 per mental block you lost $2,100 off
your $40,000 leaving you with a total of $37,900. Now, any combination of
two more mental blocks and either one rationalization or three defensive
projections will put you out of the game. Are you willing to go ahead?"
"Yes, Red."
"I might say here that all of Evelyn's questions and answers have
been checked for accuracy with her analyst. Now, Evelyn, for $80,000
explain the failure of your three marriages."
"Well, I--"
"We'll get back to Evelyn in one minute. First a word about our
product."
-- Jules Feiffer
Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
-- Ingrid Bergman
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
-- Erma Bombeck
At the hospital, a doctor is training an intern on how to announce bad news
to the patients. The doctor tells the intern "This man in 305 is going to
die in six months. Go in and tell him." The intern boldly walks into the
room, over to the man's bedisde and tells him "Seems like you're gonna die!"
The man has a heart attack and is rushed into surgery on the spot. The doctor
grabs the intern and screams at him, "What!?!? are you some kind of moron?
You've got to take it easy, work your way up to the subject. Now this man in
213 has about a week to live. Go in and tell him, but, gently, you hear me,
gently!"
The intern goes softly into the room, humming to himself, cheerily
opens the drapes to let the sun in, walks over to the man's bedside, fluffs
his pillow and wishes him a "Good morning!" "Wonderful day, no? Say...
guess who's going to die soon!"
I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise.
-- Chauncey Depew
Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929.
Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating
table to prevent her interference, he placed a ureteral catheter into
a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and
walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory
x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize.
The trouble with heart disease is that the first symptom is often hard to
deal with: death.
-- Michael Phelps
A woman physician has made the statement that smoking is neither
physically defective nor morally degrading, and that nicotine, even
when indulged to in excess, is less harmful than excessive petting."
-- Purdue Exponent, Jan 16, 1925
Cure the disease and kill the patient.
-- Francis Bacon
Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
Fortune's Exercising Truths:
1: Richard Simmons gets paid to exercise like a lunatic. You don't.
2. Aerobic exercises stimulate and speed up the heart. So do heart attacks.
3. Exercising around small children can scar them emotionally for life.
4. Sweating like a pig and gasping for breath is not refreshing.
5. No matter what anyone tells you, isometric exercises cannot be done
quietly at your desk at work. People will suspect manic tendencies as
you twitter around in your chair.
6. Next to burying bones, the thing a dog enjoys mosts is tripping joggers.
7. Locking four people in a tiny, cement-walled room so they can run around
for an hour smashing a little rubber ball -- and each other -- with a hard
racket should immediately be recognized for what it is: a form of insanity.
8. Fifty push-ups, followed by thirty sit-ups, followed by ten chin-ups,
followed by one throw-up.
9. Any activity that can't be done while smoking should be avoided.
Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
-- Samuel Goldwyn
Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door.
His ideas of first-aid stopped short of squirting soda water.
-- P.G. Wodehouse
Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long
walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They
then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
others who have tried it.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an official
name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death Flu". You
may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish you had another
setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that said "ELECTROCUTION".
Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a)
your teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing
process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a couple
of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways out of your
mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste stalagmites that
would bond your head permanently to the bathroom floor, which is how the
police would find you.
You know the kind of flu I'm talking about.
-- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"
“Good health” is merely the slowest rate at which one can die.
The Vet Who Surprised A Cow
In the course of his duties in August 1977, a Dutch veterinary
surgeon was required to treat an ailing cow. To investigate its internal
gases he inserted a tube into that end of the animal not capable of facial
expression and struck a match. The jet of flame set fire first to some
bales of hay and then to the whole farm causing damage estimate at L45,000.
The vet was later fined L140 for starting a fire in a manner surprising to
the magistrates. The cow escaped with shock.
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS:
4. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF THE TREATMENT FAILS TO BRING RELIEF.
You must believe that your doctor has achieved a deep insight into
the true nature of your illness, which transcends any mere permanent
disability you may have experienced.
5. NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT.
It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be
explained in terms that you would understand.
6. SUBMIT TO NOVEL EXPERIMANTAL TREATMENT READILY.
Though the surgery may not benefit you directly, the resulting
research paper will surely be of widespread interest.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
of nothing.
-- Redd Foxx