Lots of people are facing hard financial times. And while everyone is reporting depressing news of layoffs and bankruptcies, I wanted to touch on some news that’s a little more practical (and funny). If you work in a hospital – nurses, techs, doctors, interns, administrators, NPs, PAs, etc – you should be aware of these “9 Signs that the Hospital is in Financial Trouble“. If you see anyone of these bad boys going on at your workplace, start looking for another job.

• Rent-a-catheter program
• The nurse and the physician ask for their portion of the bill each day.
• Discount on surgery in exchange for semi-permanent tattoo – “Like my CABG? Call 1-800-
• We-Cath1″
• When patients bring medicines to the hospital, the pills are collected, counted, and added to the hospital formulary.
• The 64-slice CT scanner is operated by a technician and Vinny, the “billing supervisor”.
• Triage includes collecting your bank routing number in addition to your insurance information.
• Napkins provided with you
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I’m not sure where it started… maybe from a mixture of words like botanicals, herbal, and pharmaceuticals… maybe from those network marketing folks using new words like nutriceuticals. I don’t know.

But lately, I’ve heard way too many health care professionals using words that do not exist, like “diabeticals” and “diureticals”. I expect it from an occasional patient, but not people that work in health care.

Anyway, here’s a comic I made about diureticals…

Get medical humor, nursing jokes, funny doctor stories, and health care bloopers by following @GiggleMed on Twitter. You can "follow" these funny micro-blog posts whenever and how ever you want. Here are some sample posts:

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There are lots of things that leave you thinking, “TMI” when reading some tweets from the world of Twitter. And that’s fine… you wanna post something on Twitter, fine. Just do us all a favor and spare us these 21 Things You Should Never Tweet About Your Health:

• Your favorite urine sample flavor
• Ways you conned your doctor out of paying your copay
• Requests for more narcotics
• Your sputum quality index
• Your latest spot on the Bristol Stool Chart
• Mechanical home remedies for hemorrhoids (with or without step-by-step instructions)
• All of the reasons you enjoy kidney stone pain
• Stories of your favorite colonoscopy experience
• All of the things that fascinate you about boils and carbuncles
• A list of your favorite hospital odors and the source of their nostalgia
• The prevailing theories on why you get recurrent rectal abscesses
• Links to Flikr photos of the lesions you discovered in your armpit
• Your first thoughts upon tasting that drainage from your tooth abscess
• Your six favorit
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I was thinking... then, I got to wondering... What would some of my favorite shows as a kid have looked like through the eyes of a specialist? I mean, everywhere I look I feel like I'm seeing medical disorders... so, what do the specialists see? 

How many endocrine disorders to you see represented in this nurse clip art?

This is not a GiggleMed image. And it’s probably not meant to be funny.

You know that phenomenon of looking at someone and secretly wondering about their medical disorders just based on looking at them? We all do it and we rarely talk about it. It’s not really appropriate to bring it up outside of the health care setting.

Well, the same thing happened the other day when this clip art image was posted on a NPO sign outside of a patient’s hospital room. One endocrine disorder immediately jumped out, but on closer inspection, there are several. You can see the answer here, on this Endocrine Humor – Poster Child graphic.

CT scan: Intra-abdominal ewok or panda?

Is that a panda in your abdomen or are you just happy to see me?

Some people look and see it right away. Others have to stare at it for a while. Once you see it, it’s kinda cute… in a liver-on-your-head sort of way. This real CT reminds me of that ewok that had the bandage on his head in Return of the Jedi. Others think it looks like a panda.

If you see something else, post a comment below.

Is this sacrum smiling (or straining)?

Is nothing sacral anymore?… A laughing sacrum?

This image is a real slice from a patient’s CT scan. We first saw this image in the middle of a pretty hectic day. It made all of the doctors, nurse practitioners, and nurses crack up and brought the tone of a tough day back to earth.

If you have digital imaging at your hospital, you’ll see these things for sure. The spine, the pelvis, and the kidneys are great for uncovering funny facial expressions.

Of course, patient care first… but if you have any funny images, send them our way. (No patient identifying info, no copyrighted material, and we can do with it what we please – See our Terms for details.)

This is a legitimate scale for stool quality

I take no issue with describing stool quality for medical purposes. I take no issue with graphic representation of those qualities. And, I take no issue with creating a scale for easier communication between doctors, nurses, and other health care providers.

I do, however, take issue with the fact that it reads like a breakfast menu…

Sources:

Lewis SJ, Heaton KW (1997), “Stool form scale as a useful guide to intestinal transit time”, Scand. J. Gastroenterol. 32(9): 920–4, PMID 9299672

“Constipation Management and Nurse Prescribing: The importance of developing a concordant approach” (PDF).

Wikipedia: Bristol Stool Scale

SCOE 10X – The Odor Eliminator – for Types 2 through 6 :)

Get ready to laugh your glutei off…

Medical humor has a new face. GiggleMed.com has not only changed it’s look, but also the many ways to reach you. The main site is now in blog format, so you can get all of your favorite health care humor, nursing jokes, and doctor funnies in many different ways…

Because of the blog format, you can subscribe to the RSS feeds to bring the laughter directly to you. Just click on the RSS button in the upper left, on top of the side bar. You can pick up the latest posts in your favorite reader or even on your home page.

The blog format also gives you better organization and an easier time navigating to your favorite content. Browse by link title in the menu bar across the top. Or choose the category you want in the left side bar. Or even use the tag cloud to choose posts by keyword.

There’s also a ton of GiggleMed original medical humor available in social media formats, such as Ning, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Squidoo.

You can still get all of ...