In his scrubs Dr. David Goldberg doubles as a delivery man as he drops off the latest shipment of his new book ‘Jokes You’ll Love to Tell’ at the Kelowna General Hospital’s Gift Shop.
“The book occurred accidentally the beginning of it was about 10 years ago when I was asked to entertain the operating theatre during cement time,” said Dr. Goldberg who is a family doctor as well as a surgical assist in Orthopedic Surgery at KGH.
“Of course, I had no idea what cement time was and I learned that’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 now he’s putting the old saying ‘laughter is the best medicine’ to the test.
“My daughter who is 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 bit less anxious and help them not think about their pain or suffering, then it has done way more than I could hope for.”
It has been a surprise success for the doctor-turned-author.
“I think it’s just a great thing to have in the bookstore for people who are coming to visit a loved one who probably doesn’t 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 funds raised from book sales to the KGH Foundation and he has already brought in over $1,000. A number he hopes will only grow as he restocks the shelves at the KGH Gift Shop and Mosaic Books. ‘Jokes You’ll Love to Tell’ is also available online at www.amazon.ca
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