Medicine might be a serious business, but laughter therapy and humor can help patients cope, contribute to a positive outlook, and can also reduce pain, improve the immune system, and burn calories.
Set your stress aside and join the McGoogan Library of Medicine for National Humor Month. The library celebration will last the entire month of April. A display will include books on humor in medicine, links to articles exploring the use of humor and laughter in a clinical setting, and a one-of-a-kind collection of medical cartoons.
Alumnus Lloyd L. Thompson, M.D. (1911-1987) collected medical cartoons for more than 50 years. He catalogued them by subject, itemizing them better than most people accomplish on their taxes. The cartoon collection, which contains more than 60,000 clippings in 22 large scrapbooks, was donated to the library after Dr. Thompson’s death.
He started his collection shortly after he graduated from UNMC (class of 1935), so the scrapbooks contain an amazing assortment of cartoon styles and showcase how the American sense of humor has changed (or hasn’t, as the case may be) over the years.
His collection features dozens of dangerous reflex tests, a hundred ways a patient will avoid getting a shot, jokes in body casts, with Band-Aids, and under the influence of ether, the trials of attractive females in the vicinity of cardiac stress tests, as well as an iconic look back at the use of computers in medicine, and all the foibles and follies the machines wrought in their early years.
When you visit, feel free to ask for the scrapbook volume in your medical specialty. Some volumes will be on display in the Consumer Health Information Research Services alcove located on the sixth floor of Wittson Hall, while others will remain in the Archives.
Disclaimer: The library will not be held accountable for any clever ideas physicians may come up with for dealing with their patients.