Just like in any other profession, doctors and nurses also share jokes and memes on group chats and their Instagram feeds. As frontline workers, it gives them a much-needed dose of comic relief amid all the stress and emotional toll.
"Every ward round, night shift, or on-call is basically free content. If it made us laugh (or cry) in real life, it usually turns into a meme. Doctors have a unique sense of humor, it’s how we survive long shifts, tough cases," Dr Nauman Ali, the creator of Funny Doctors account, tells Bored Panda.
Medical memes are also a way to both celebrate and critique the profession — they can sometimes hit too close to home by highlighting real issues such as staffing shortages or working straight for months without a day off.
On what inspired him to start the page, Dr Ali says: "I started Funny Doctors in July 2011. Back then, I was a pretty introverted medical student with a strong sense of observation. Medical school can be intense, stressful, and emotionally heavy, so I naturally began turning those everyday moments into humor."
Working as an Intensive and Acute Care Physician now, he started the page partly as a coping mechanism and partly as a creative outlet.
"What started as a personal escape from the tense environment of medical school slowly grew into something many others related to, laughed at, and felt understood by."
Medical humor is not uncommon. TV shows like Scrubs or Grey’s Anatomy have long shown the chaos and absurdity of hospital life. But memes take it to a whole other level.
They are easily shareable, making them the perfect humor channel to help health workers laugh, vent and connect with their colleagues all at the same time.
Dr Ali says that the memes that are based on the day-to-day experiences of healthcare workers always get the best reactions. "Whether it’s interactions with other specialties, different personalities within the same specialty, or those unspoken moments everyone in a hospital instantly recognizes."
He adds: "When people see a meme and think 'This literally happened to me today,' that’s when it really connects."
On what inspires these memes, Dr Ali says: "I enjoy medical humor pages from around the world, but the best inspiration still comes from real hospital life. No meme generator can beat an actual on-call experience, or a chaotic ward round."
Some memes are way too real for people working in the medical profession — exhausting night shifts, charting marathons, looking for a working printer. They show how demanding healthcare work can be.
Through these jokes, healthcare workers also feel reassured that they are not the only ones struggling with the workload.
A survey of over 2,600 US healthcare workers found that 26% had symptoms of mental illness, but only 20% of them said they sought treatment — mainly due to not getting time off of work and being worried about confidentiality and expenses.
The most common work stressors were burnout, inadequate staff, and huge amount of workload or job demands.
And not to forget the emotional stress of being a frontline worker. Dealing with severely ill patients and their families, coping with loss and trauma are some of the major stressors as well.
A study shows that humor acts as coping mechanism for healthcare professionals and trainees. Many medical students find insider humor emotionally bonding, and it helps them make sense of their experience as doctors-in-training.
But there are, of course, other ways that these employees use to cope at work. Talking to colleagues about their struggles, professional counselling and therapy, and exercise are some of the ways that doctors swear by.
Even meditation, taking time off work whenever possible, going on vacations are some habits that can help make them feel less burdened.
