My dad was a terrible patient. He hated most doctors, medical offices, and so forth. Just despised it all. Unfortunately, he was in his late 80s with a list of health issues longer than a CVS receipt. In his last few years, he had more days with medical appointments scheduled than he didn’t.
That presented a pretty big challenge, as I quickly learned when I took over managing his health care early in 2020. Annoyed and frustrated patients quickly lead to annoyed and frustrated doctors and nurses, and that combo quickly leads to bad health outcomes.
So it also didn’t take long for me to decide on a strategy for counteracting this.
The answer seemed to be humor. One of my dad’s best personal traits was his liberal use of self-effacing humor, and his willingness to always entertaining a punchline from me. So we had this ongoing friendly comedic banter back and forth that outsiders seemed to love.
To set the initial mood of each visit, I came up with a few standard jokes that we regularly relied on. For instance, when asked to verify his birthdate—which one of the first things that happens every single visit—we’d start with an age joke. My dad would say “35…1835.” The (often young) medical assistant would start typing it in for a sec before catching it. He developed a pretty good delivery on it.
One of my own standard jokes is to add things I don’t like (washing dishes, doing laundry, paying bills, etc) to my known allergy list, so I simply started doing the same for him, sometimes riffing on his own situation. For instance, he was confined to a wheelchair, so I’d occasionally put something like ultramarathons on the list and see how the person reacted, then with a smile jibe them a bit for asking such an obviously offensive question—which would make my dad laugh (and usually the medical assistant too, though it often took them a second or two to get over the initial faux pas). Or, I might add something he really liked, like his favorite beer or steakhouse, to the list and he’d let out a surprised yelp and a protest when it was read to him to confirm.
Most of the rest of the jokes were ad libbed in the moment. I’m generally prolific in finding some sort of joke to make in those situations; and even if they don’t all land, it definitely changed the vibe of each visit.
The key was to get a chuckle or something early on with the medical practitioner, while also making the visit feel a bit “lighter” for my dad. We of course made lots of beer jokes, and after he “graduated” hospice by going to the bar (yeah, true story!), we’d couple the jokes with that story. He came to be known as the guy who was going to happy hour after the visit (which is, quite literally, what we often did—which also served as a bit of a reward for him getting through the visit).
Most of the time, the nurses and doctors seemed to really enjoy all of it; I’m sure it was a welcomed break from their standard interactions, which often revolve around bad news. I felt like there was a noticeable difference in how they approached him as a patient and me as a caregiver because of those lighthearted interactions; it was by far the easiest way to establish a rapport. They’d tease us back, make sure to say goodbye, and remember us on future visits. And stuff like that can help with better outcomes, especially when you need a doctor to go to bat for you with an insurance company, or figure out how to squeeze you into a sooner appointment time than is otherwise available. Having doctors that truly like you can make a difference.
And the few that didn’t seem to obviously enjoy the joking, probably didn’t realize how much better this made the visit for everyone. Now that my dad was in a good mood, it was much easier for him to deal with all the waiting, or setting up additional appointments that he didn’t want to do, or undergoing something like a blood draw (he absolutely hated needles and quickly got downright hostile if it took too long) or outpatient procedure.
I’ve intentionally employed this strategy for myself the last few years, and I feel like I’ve gotten overall better service from health care providers, too. I recommend it to everyone—and especially if you have a somewhat difficult patient, like my dad, to manage.