Gallows Humor in Medicine and Medical Education
Presented by:
Katie Watson, JD, Assistant Professor Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Objectives:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Identify some of the functions of gallows humor in medicine using medical humanities approaches.
- Analyze jokes as expressions of power or powerlessness.
- Evaluate gallows humor in an ethics framework to determine when it is conducive to patient care and/or trainee learning, and when it is not.
- Distinguish gallows humor from bullying and ridicule.
