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prostate cancer, punchlines and patient care: dr. goldberg’s mission to heal with humour

while sense of humour isn’t part of the hippocratic oath, dr. david goldberg has taken his bedside manner to a whole new level as a comedian for his hospital colleagues and his patients.

by karen hawthorne

published dec 06, 2024

6 minute read

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6 minute read

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at 61, dr. david goldberg, right, runs outdoors daily, loves skiing and has taken up snowboarding. keeping himself healthy and happy is a priority so he’s up to the demands of the job. supplied

medicine gets delivered in incredible ways like ivs, implanted ports under the skin of your chest or belly, and external beams that radiate cancer cells. but one of the most underrated methods is humour, especially when it comes from a joke-cracking physician who knows how to get people laughing when they are feeling far from their best. for dr. david goldberg, his career as a devoted family physician and surgical assistant in the or, has taken an unexpected and delightful turn over the last few years.

“humour has always been, without recognizing it formally, a really important part of dealing with people and looking after people,” he explains, talking to healthing on a pre-dawn call from his home office in kelowna, british columbia. at 61, he runs outdoors daily, loves skiing and has taken up snowboarding. keeping himself healthy and happy is a priority so he’s up to the demands of the job.

“humour and medicine mixed is a huge portion of what i do every day,” he says. “humour helps keep you sane. and you can also use it to help patients through difficult times. telling a joke, if you choose it correctly at the right time, can really help put people at ease.”

and studies have shown the protective health benefits of laughter, whether you’re watching a good movie, spending time with a friend or stretching out the kinks in a laughter yoga class. a 2023 review and analysis of the science published in plos one revealed that spontaneously induced laughter reduces excessive or prolonged cortisol secretion – the stress hormone – that is associated with physical and psychological diseases including obesity, depression, and chronic pain.

goldberg is a natural funny man, with a kind and generous smile that you can’t help but be drawn to. while sense of humour isn’t part of the hippocratic oath, he’s taken his bedside manner to a whole new level as a comedian for his hospital colleagues and his patients – not to mention growing numbers of fans who’ve read his book “jokes you’ll love to tell: a prescription for laughter“. it’s available (so far) on amazon, at indigo in british columbia, and the gift shop of kelowna general hospital where it regularly sells out. proceeds from the book go to the prostate cancer foundation of canada to raise awareness for prostate-specific antigen (psa) testing in the blood.

it’s a cause that hits home. his grandfather died of prostate cancer, his dad went through prostate cancer and goldberg himself was treated successfully for early-stage prostate cancer in 2023 and continues to be monitored. prostate cancer is the most common cancer among canadian men and he encourages his patients to get tested.

there are no dad jokes or one-liners in the book, but years’ worth of more elaborate adult jokes that he’s adapted for his “cement time” performances.

dr. david goldberg, left, rehearses all his material with his wife who is also his censor to keep the jokes “relatively clean,” he says. supplied

cement time? in orthopedic surgery, a type of bone cement is used to fix joint replacement prostheses to host bone for procedures like hip or knee replacements.

goldberg’s comedy routine all started when an orthopedic surgeon that he assists in the or two days a week told him to entertain the or team while they had to wait for the cement to dry during surgery. “on one of the first days when i’m still not really a known entity, i’m just a guy there that’s assisting, he says, ‘goldberg, one of your responsibilities as a surgical assist is to entertain the room during cement time.’ while you’re waiting for the cement to harden, you can’t do anything. so the whole room goes silent, and you don’t want people losing their focus and not having everyone on the same page.”

the surgeon suggested that he sing a song, tell a story or joke, or do a craft. for his craft-making demo, he worked quickly with the leftover bone cement to create sculpture and pottery for the amusement of the surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurses, radiation technologist, and often medical and nursing students as well.

but, like everything, the novelty wears off and the crowd wants something new. so, after a good run of cement artworks, he tried telling a couple of jokes and he was a hit.

“having about the same level of immaturity, derek, the surgeon that i work with, we are now inseparable. in fact, when we work together, i think a lot of the people who come to our room come for the entertainment value of just watching the two of us bickering like an old married couple, which we do all day long,” he laughs. that backdrop makes his cement time jokes even better.

there is an art to comedy, whether you’re in hospital or on stage at a club. goldberg quickly realized how much work standup comics put into their shows, but he’s become at ease in the spotlight. he grew up in winnipeg as the second of four boys in an environment that can best be described as “very loud,” so maybe that’s made him competitive and driven to excel.

he rehearses all his material with his wife who is also his censor to keep the jokes “relatively clean,” he says.

“so if she laughs, i know i can tell that one. sometimes she will laugh and say, ‘yeah, you can’t tell that one.’ so what i would inevitably do if i really thought it was funny is announce to the room beforehand, ‘i’m sorry, there’s no cement joke today’ and they would go, ‘what do you mean there’s no cement joke?’ i said, ‘well, i had one, but my censor said i couldn’t tell it.’ and of course, that would just make everybody that much more inclined to want to hear it. those are the really good ones.”

soon enough, he had other hospital staff members asking him to tell a joke and brighten their day. laughter is a great balm for stress and burnout, and it’s something goldberg values as a longtime physician and father of three.

“as family doctors, we carry this humongous burden of everybody’s problems. they do add up the longer you’re in practice and for many of your patients, you’ve known them for decades. if something bad happens, it’s hard to sit back and think ‘i’m just the doctor looking after the problem.’ this is somebody you’ve known for years and you’ve got to try and help them through that. i think it can get very dark very quickly if you don’t have a release for some of that energy.”

dr. david goldberg and his daughter aidan at kelowna general hospital where she works as a nurse. supplied

as he became more known for his jokes, people told him to write them down. that was the starting point for the book. when he took a two-month break from his work for his prostate cancer treatment, he used the time to put together the collection of his favourite jokes. (ask him to tell you the one about the man and the empty seat at the soccer world cup game.)

“i went ahead and did the self-publishing and ordered 100 books and handed them out gleefully to all the nurses and staff that i’ve been working with and everyone loved it,” he says, adding it’s unique on a few levels. is there a doctor out there who has authored a joke book?

he offered the book to the hospital foundation for fundraising and then approached a local book distributor who worked with him on a second edition that includes a chapter on his experience as a patient. when he went into the or to have his second round of brachytherapy, a form of radiation therapy, for his prostate cancer, the anesthetist and nurses were still waiting for the oncologist. they asked goldberg to tell them a joke while lying on the table. (that’s one way to mentally prepare for cancer treatment.)

another highlight was a nurse at the hospital telling him she had walked into a private room to care for a very ill patient. she found him lying in bed laughing as his wife was reading him jokes out of the joke book that she had bought in the gift shop.

“that makes this all worthwhile,” he says, beaming. the book has led to appearances at events, including a recent meeting of a prostate cancer support group.

“i pictured myself in a small room with a dozen men sitting in a semicircle, but when i arrived, it was an auditorium full of people. i hadn’t prepared anything, and the organizer asked me to chat for 20 minutes and talk about my diagnosis. i told a few jokes and so on and thought i’d made it to the 20 minutes. i looked at my watch and i’d been talking for three-quarters of an hour.”

karen hawthorne

karen hawthorne worked for six years as a digital editor for the national post, contributing articles on health, business, culture and travel for affiliated newspapers across canada. she now writes from her home office in toronto and takes breaks to bounce with her son on the backyard trampoline and walk bingo, her bull terrier.

prostate cancer, punchlines and patient care: dr. goldberg’s mission to heal with humour

while sense of humour isn’t part of the hippocratic oath, dr. david goldberg has taken his bedside manner to a whole new level as a comedian for his hospital colleagues and his patients.

this expert says prostate cancer is a normal part of the aging process for men, like 'grey hair and wrinkles.' but there are still barriers to care

what it feels like: 'watching and waiting' while living with prostate cancer

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prostate cancer, punchlines and patient care: dr. goldberg’s mission to heal with humour

while sense of humour isn’t part of the hippocratic oath, dr. david goldberg has taken his bedside manner to a whole new level as a comedian for his hospital colleagues and his patients.

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