Recorded on November 15, 2009.
Pain can generate as much laughter as joy can. When does humor in a difficult situation help, and when does it hurt? Katie Watson is a medical ethicist and attorney on the faculty of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s groundbreaking Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program. She is also on the faculty of The Second City Training Center. In this first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary program, Watson draws from psychology, philosophy, theater, literature, and law to consider backstage storytelling in medicine, and the ethics of humor as a coping mechanism in difficult professions.
