“We learn to give you a hard time in nursing school!” Humor and hierarchy in medicine

• In Event: 20820 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 18. Healthcare Providers & Practice I

Abstract

Humor can be used as a powerful tool in the workplace to release frustration and maintain social order. Sociological research on medical humor has focused largely on the role of humor as a release valve among staff in stressful medical settings, including gallows humor about patients, and creating social bonds among medical staff. The current study, based on observations of staff on an inpatient adult psychiatric unit, explores the ways humor is used to contest occupational hierarchies between doctors and non-physician staff,including nurses and social workers. Findings indicate that non-medical staff counter medical dominance through the use of three types of humor: giving doctors personal space, critiquing their high salaries, and criticizing their work. While physicians often use humor to negatively categorize other professions, the use of humor empowers staff to counter medical dominance and temporarily achieve equality. Further study of the use of humor to contest medical hierarchies between staff is essential to sociological understandings of clinical workplaces.

Author

• Heidi Taylor, Bates College