For those first coming to this blog, I started this as a way to flush out my thoughts with a DPT twist on current trends in running footwear. Additionally, my goal was to review running shoes while educating people on how parts of the shoe could affect your body and what to think about and look for. Recently, having just passed boards and graduated from DPT school, I have had an urge to not only continue with what I was doing footwear wise, but also to steer this blog in a more physical therapy based direction. I absolutely love teaching and I am hoping to share not only what I learn during this journey as a DPT, but also what I learn as a runner/athlete, what I learn in my upcoming orthopedic residency at Casa Colina, in my future potential fellowship(s), etc. My goal is make people think and improve how they view not only themselves but the world around them.
So to get things started, I am here to provide my first bit of wisdom to students, prospective students, new grads and other medical professionals. We need more humor in this profession. The fact that the one of the only physical therapy jokes we have is "PT stands for Pain and Torture" kills me. I hate that phrase and part of my soul dies every time I either say it or hear it. An unbelievably important part of getting a patient to work with you is being able to build good rapport. I have found humor to be a very effective means of winning patients over (although this will not work with every patient. At times you may need to be a little more tactful in certain areas). Thus it has been my goal to create original physical therapy jokes from one liners to stories. I am happy to share them as long as they are used not only to promote the profession but to try to ease the pain and fear that students, patients, family members and more experience either with practicals, injuries, school and more. I have seen first hand (although this is testimonial) a patient report a lower pain scale score following one of my jokes. I am not up to date on the research behind humor in medicine and would love to see something on humor in physical therapy.
Anyway, here is my current list of ones I have come up with :
DISCLAIMER: Some of these are far better than others. Don't judge me.
One-Liners
I had a patient who was a dairy farmer... so I gave him a calf stretch.
I had a patient who was an engineer.... so I gave him bridges.
I had a patient who likes seafood... so I gave him clamshells.
I had a patient who said he likes spiders, so I gave him the powerweb.
I had a patient who said he likes horror films... so I gave him monster walks.
I had a patient who was a K9 officer.... so I gave him the downward dog stretch.
I had a patient who was being an ass.... so I gave him donkey kicks.
I had a patient who was pissing me off... so I gave him kegels.
I had a patient who told me he was a pirate... so I gave him planks.
I had a patient who said he was a swinger... so I gave him the ankle 4 way exercise.
I had a patient who said one of the other therapists took her breath away... so I gave her diaphragmatic breathing exercises.
I had a patient who said he worked at the morgue.... so I gave him deadlifts.
I had a patient who said he was a window washer... so I gave him power cleans.
I had a patient who said he worked at a restaurant... so I gave him waiter's tips.
I had a patient who was a clock maker... so I gave him pendulums.
I had a patient who said the front desk put him on hold... so I gave him isometrics.
I had a patient who said he was an orthodontist, so I gave him abdominal bracing.
Longer Jokes:
I had a patient the other day that told me during the evaluation that he had recently had a heart valve replacement. I asked him what kind because I wanted to know if he had a prosthetic valve (checking for internal metal). He said no and that he had an equine valve put in (he was a bigger guy). I asked if there were any side effects from the horse valve and he said, "Neigh."
I had a patient who came to me with a post-op ACL repair. I asked him what kind of graft he had and he told me he had a cadaver graft (allograft). I then asked him if he felt dead inside.
I had a yoga instructor that came to me with a fairly serious medical condition. She asked me after the evaluation if I though physical therapy would help. I said, "that's a stretch."
DISCLAIMER: These are all jokes. None of these things have actually happened. The gender of all the jokes are open to changing.
Please feel free to comment and add others. I will continue to post more as I come up with them. Please remember that no matter how stressed you are, someone out there needs to laugh.
Thanks for reading. Go change the world.
-Dr. Matthew Klein, PT, DPT
