Science and Creativity: Your Brain on Laughter Part III
Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen
PRX
4.6 • 675 Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2018
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When is humor appropriate in the medical field? Bioethicist Katie Watson, an Assistant Professor in the Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program of Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, has thought a lot about this issue. She moonlights as faculty at the Second City Training Center in Chicago, the teaching side of the famous improv comedy club.She has written about gallows humor in medicine, spoken about it at the Chicago Humanities Festival, and used the intersection of her interests to develop a workshop in “Medical Improv.” Later, WNYC’s Health Reporter Marry Harris and Kurt Andersen return to Laughter Yoga to give us the scoop on their experience.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | From PRX. |
| 0:09.0 | This is Studio 360. |
| 0:11.5 | I'm Kurti Anderson. |
| 0:14.3 | This podcast episode is part of a special series of stories about science and creativity. |
| 0:20.2 | The third and final segment |
| 0:22.1 | on laughter. |
| 0:25.9 | I'm just really nervous. |
| 0:27.8 | Yeah, of course you're nervous. You're pregnant. There is a creature inside of you moving |
| 0:31.5 | around and it's like getting smarter and bigger every day. If I was you, I'd be freaking out. |
| 0:35.6 | So the practice of medicine obviously makes for great fodder for comedy. |
| 0:40.9 | The job of doctors is dealing with practically every physical, bodily subject not fit for |
| 0:49.0 | polite company and sometimes often dealing with death. And we all know about Gallo's humor. |
| 0:56.9 | But it's one thing for a comedian or an actor playing a doctor on television to make jokes, |
| 1:03.4 | it's very different in real life when doctors and nurses are, say, dealing with you and your illness. |
| 1:12.5 | How do those people decide when joking is over the line or not? |
| 1:18.4 | Studio 360 alumna Amanda Aranchik is a reporter at WNYC, and she brought us this story. |
| 1:25.6 | Two health care workers are performing in one of those exercises taken from improv theater. |
| 1:31.4 | Here's the scene. |
| 1:32.8 | There are Santa's elves, and they're standing side by side, |
| 1:36.0 | and they're sifting through mail at the North Pole. |
| 1:38.0 | You know, I have problems with deep-fay thrombosis, |
| 1:44.0 | and these stripes types are just killing me. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.