Within the healthcare setting, we meet patients experiencing the most incredible highs and devastating lows of their lives. As future healthcare professionals, we have the honour of sharing news of pregnancy, of cancer in remission and of lives that can be saved. But equally, we have the burden of breaking news that pregnancies aren’t viable, cancer has metastasised and loved ones won’t survive. The emotional toll of working in medicine is enormous and one that everyone deals with differently. But time and time again we see that where there is grief and suffering, humour and joy can be found coexisting.

Infamously doctors are known to adopt a dark sense of humour, finding a way to laugh about situations that the general public may find horrifying. But is humour a defensive mechanism for self-preservation or a valuable technique in the doctor's toolbox? I want to explore the toll it takes on doctors to witness traumatic and heartbreaking events in hospitals and healthy ways to separate work and personal life.

With the increasing publicity of a doctor's profession that was once shrouded in mystery but now splashed across TikTok and detailed in autobiographies, is it appropriate for the general public to see this side of medicine? Or are we making a joke of the profession and losing the public's faith? Not all challenges in medicine arise from the hardship of patients, too often there are still reports of doctors facing discrimination and disparaging language from their colleagues. How do we combat the instinct to laugh off and downplay these situations?

However, it is not just doctors who use laughter and joy to combat the realities of disease. From the Hollywood world of Patch Adams to the Royal Children’s Hospital, humour is used by medical and Clown doctors as a form of treatment to bring laughter to those who need it most. How can we help to put smiles on the faces of our patients and families when it feels impossible? Of course, it is important to recognise when situations must be afforded the gravity they deserve. Too often important topics or new ideas can be laughed at and dismissed. What current issues and ideas are we as a society and medical profession dismissing now that we will come to see were no laughing matter?