Wearing scrubs, Dr. David Goldberg delivers the latest batch of his new book ‘Jokes You’ll Love to Tell’ to the Gift Shop at Kelowna General Hospital.
“The book came about accidentally around 10 years ago when I was asked to entertain the operating theatre during cement time,” said Dr. Goldberg, a family doctor and surgical assist in Orthopedic Surgery at KGH.
“I had no idea what cement time was at first. I learned that it's the time when you’re waiting for cement to harden enough when you replace a joint, so during that time there’s nothing that can be done in the operation.”
Dr. Goldberg has been collecting and sharing jokes in and out of operating theatres for a decade and is now testing the old saying ‘laughter is the best medicine’.
“My daughter, a nurse in this hospital, texted me one day from work, stating that she’d walked in to provide care for one of her patients who was lying in bed while his wife read jokes to him from my jokebook,” said Dr. Goldberg. “I just thought this is the best possible use for this book. If it can make people a little less anxious and help them not think about their pain or suffering, then it has done way more than I could hope for.”
The doctor-turned-author has been pleasantly surprised by the book's success.
“I think it’s great to have in the bookstore for people visiting a loved one who may not have the concentration to read a novel,” said Dr. Goldberg. “You can read a joke, feel better, fall asleep, and wake up, read the same joke, and still laugh at it.”
Dr. Goldberg is donating all the proceeds from book sales to the KGH Foundation, having already raised over $1,000. He hopes this number will continue to grow as he restocks the shelves at the KGH Gift Shop and Mosaic Books. ‘Jokes You’ll Love to Tell’ can also be found online at www.amazon.ca
