Medical Comic Strip, Hits Close to Home!

Despite the stress and drama of working in health care, nurses and doctors (and other healthcare professionals) can often find something to laugh about. You'll notice that when a group get together and start trading war stories about things that happened during a particularly trying shift.

While some "outsiders" may think it's cruel that we laugh at these things, people need a way to cool off, to laugh at some things, or else the stress just gets to be too much. For instance, not too long ago, I was working in an office setting (not a medical office) where we had doctors come for occasional clinics. I answered the phone and someone said "I'd like to make an appointment with the doctor please." I responded by telling him that there would be no doctor available that whole week and that we were not yet sure if one would be coming in next week. His response? "Ok, I'd like to make an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow then." Um, no... you can't... there is no doctor here this week. "Oh, ok," he said. "I'll make an appointment for next week then."

Did he even listen to what I said at the beginning of the conversation?

This, of course, is just a small snippet of the types of conversations we can have, but when you get a day when most of your conversations like that, you either pull out your hair or you laugh. Luckily, most of us choose to laugh, or there would be an awful lot of bald people in health care.

All this is a run up to a neat comic strip I came across today. So far it is only in French, but there are plans to have it translated in the (near?) future. Even if you don't understand French, some of the comedy is universal, regardless of the language.

The comic strip creators are an ER doctor and nurse who are working together on this project. They are from the Quebec City region and they are drawing on experiences and stories from others. They even invite ideas. So, have a look. I believe that most people will be able to understand. But, I am very eager for them to get this translated because, as much as I enjoy their comics, I'd love for so many more people to as well.

You will find the STAT comic strip at statcomics.com and the weekly strip on the BD de la semaine.