An Indian Hosptial

People think that a hospital is a drab and miserable place. That, since patients come for a cure for their illness they generally has a bleak and dreary air about them. That, this then rubs off on to the Doctors and nurses who as a consequence adopt a defensive brusqueness and bland exterior.

On the contrary, the hospital is often a place of great humors and lightheartedness, and human foibles get laughed at in much the same of moments of mirth’ and I have only been richer for the experience.

Hospital humor comes in variety of shapes and sizes. I still remember our teacher in medical college chiding a freshman on poor history taking. The freshman had been assigned to a patient who had a peculiar bowel disturbance. The freshman had been, like all fellows new to the job, pretty direct in his questioning. He asked the patient what the problem was. The teacher broke in to tell him that this was not the way to obtain delicate personal information. The teacher volunteered to show us how to ask such question and putting his hand on the patient’s shoulder, gently enquired-‘My dear man, do you have a problem with you toilet?’ To which the patient nodded brightly and replied, “Yes Sir, Thank you for asking. The roof leaks.”

Another time, a villager from Uttar Pradesh in India came with a mass in his neck that had, as goiters tend to do in that part of the country, grown quite big. We wanted a clinical photograph of the thyroid swelling for our teaching files. The patient was accordingly told to come for his photograph the following day. He duly presented himself with wife and son in law, in freshly laundered clothes and a generous amount of talcum powder applied to his face.

He innocently explained to the surprised nurse that he did not want his picture taken alone and that he wished to include his family as well. There are stories galore of how patients and doctors find humor a source of comfort in desperate situations. Like the patient who started auto-urine therapy for a highly invasive cancer, and when asked if wasn’t worried about bad breath, he explained that bad breath was better than no breath at all.