Laughter is the best medicine

笑是最好的良药

In December, 2022, a viral video of a female Ukrainian soldier dancing on a snowy bank made headlines. The cheerful choreography and the upbeat Ukrainian song were a stark contrast to the staccato of gunfire in the background.
2022年12月，一段乌克兰女兵在白雪皑皑的河岸上跳舞的视频成为头条新闻。欢快的舞蹈编排和欢快的乌克兰歌曲与背景中断断续续的枪声形成了鲜明的对比。

Loud criticisms of the unseriousness of the video in the middle of a war were voiced, but there was also an outpouring of support from some military personnel. They recognised a reality of military life and trauma, and the need for finding an emotional outlet.
人们对战争期间录像的不严肃性提出了强烈批评，但也有一些军事人员表示支持。他们认识到了军队生活和创伤的现实，以及寻找情感发泄的必要性。
Doctors, nurses, and other health-care workers also took notice. Medicine is not war, and doctors are not soldiers. Yet they, too, are familiar with the emotional toll of bearing witness to tragedy and death.
医生、护士和其他卫生保健工作者也注意到了这一点。医学不是战争，医生也不是士兵。然而，他们也很熟悉目睹悲剧和死亡所带来的情感伤害。

For some the video of the dancing soldier resonated with a time just a couple of years earlier when social media clips of doctors and nurses dancing in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were shared.
在一些人看来，这个跳舞的士兵的视频让他们想起了几年前的一段时光，当时社交媒体上分享了2019冠状病毒疾病大流行初期医生和护士跳舞的视频。

The search for levity in the midst of crisis served as a confirmation of our shared humanity and the universal need to laugh.
在危机中寻找轻浮，证实了我们共同的人性和普遍需要欢笑。

Alongside the humour and camaraderie of colleagues, sometimes doctors find themselves turning to books for a comedic escape; at other times, films and television can help bring a distraction. One US television show stands out for us in this regard. The early-2000s television show Scrubs, written and produced by American screenwriter Bill Lawrence, is a whimsical exploration of the lives of hospital trainees. Like many shows of that era, Scrubs has its flaws and controversies, including a tendency to draw on stereotypes for the comical portrayal of its characters. Yet there is also an honesty about the ups and downs of medicine, positioning it as more tragicomedy than straightforward humour.
除了同事之间的幽默和友情，有时候医生们发现他们转向书籍寻求一种喜剧性的解脱; 另一些时候，电影和电视可以帮助他们分散注意力。在这方面，一个美国电视节目脱颖而出。21世纪初的电视节目《实习医生风云》(Scrubs)由美国编剧比尔•劳伦斯(Bill Lawrence)编剧并制作，是对医院实习生生活的一次异想天开的探索。就像那个时代的许多电视剧一样，《实习医生风云》也有它的缺陷和争议，包括对角色的滑稽刻画倾向于使用刻板印象。然而，关于医学的跌宕起伏也有一种诚实，将其定位为更多的悲喜剧而不是直截了当的幽默。

There are no heroes, as can be found in Grey's Anatomy, or genius misanthropes making impossible diagnoses as featured in House. Rather, Scrubs shows self-doubt and failure, the ennui of repetitive work, the unavoidability of mistakes and death, and the tensions of hospital relationships.
没有像《实习医生格蕾》里那样的英雄，也没有像《豪斯医生》里那样做出不可能诊断的愤世嫉俗的天才。相反，《实习医生风云》展示了自我怀疑和失败，重复性工作的厌倦，错误和死亡的不可避免，以及医院关系的紧张。

“The humorous story is told gravely”, writes Mark Twain in his essay How to Tell a Story, and “the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it”. Scrubs takes the opposite approach—the serious and often grave story of doctoring is told humorously, but without concealing the pain.
马克 · 吐温在他的文章《如何讲故事》中写道: “幽默的故事讲得很严肃”，“讲故事的人尽力掩盖这样一个事实，他甚至隐隐约约地怀疑故事中有什么好笑的地方。”。《实习医生》则采取了相反的方法ーー幽默地讲述了医生严肃而往往严肃的故事，但没有掩盖其痛苦。

Lawrence designed the main character, JD, around his close friend from college: a goofy, good-natured, kind, and vulnerable physician for whom humour was an essential coping strategy during training. In an illustrative scene from an episode titled My Big Brother, JD's best friend, a surgical trainee named Turk, becomes upset at the faculty constantly making jokes around the hospital. One of his mentors, Dr Cox, pulls him aside and turns his attention to an interaction between another doctor and a patient's family.
劳伦斯设计的主要人物，JD，周围他的密友从大学: 一个傻瓜，善良，善良，脆弱的医生，幽默是一个必要的应对策略在培训。在一集名为《我的老大哥》中的一个插图场景中，JD 最好的朋友，一个名叫特克的外科实习生，因为老师在医院里不停地开玩笑而感到不安。他的一位导师考克斯医生把他拉到一边，把注意力转向另一位医生和病人家属之间的互动。

“You see Dr Wen in there?” Dr Cox says, “He's explaining to that family that something went wrong and the patient died. He's going to tell them what happened, he's going to say he's sorry, and he's going back to work.
“你在里面看到温医生了吗?”考克斯医生说，“他正在向那家人解释，出了什么问题，病人死了。他会告诉他们发生了什么，他会道歉，然后回去工作。

Do you think anyone else in that room is going back to work today?” Dr Cox continues: “And that is why we distance ourselves, that's why we make jokes. We don’t do it because it's fun, we do it so we can get by. And…sometimes because it's fun.
你觉得房间里还有其他人今天会回去工作吗?”考克斯博士继续说: “这就是为什么我们疏远自己，这就是为什么我们开玩笑。我们这么做不是因为好玩，而是为了过日子。而且... 有时候是因为好玩。

But mostly it's the getting by thing.” These lines ask the viewer to consider that physicians, first and foremost, are people, too; that in a system with such high stakes and psychological burdens, they require emotional release and social support.
但最主要的还是勉强度日。”这些台词要求观众考虑到，医生首先也是人; 在一个如此高风险和心理负担的系统中，他们需要情感释放和社会支持。

It is no accident that the show's theme song framing each episode, Lazlo Bane's Superman with its refrain “I’m no superman” is a simple reminder of physicians’ flawed humanity.
这并非偶然，节目的主题曲框架每一集，拉兹洛贝恩的超人与其副歌“我不是超人”是一个简单的提醒医生的缺陷人性。
The aphorism “laughter is the best medicine” has been attributed to the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones”. This ancient wisdom might also hold true for some medical conditions.
格言“笑是最好的良药”被认为是旧约中的箴言: “快乐的心行善如良药，但破碎的灵魂会使骨头干枯。”。这种古老的智慧也可能适用于某些医疗条件。

Research suggests that laughter might raise the pain threshold and improve glucose tolerance, have positive effects on the immune system, and lower blood pressure. Indeed, laughter seems to be associated with certain healing properties among some patients.
研究表明，笑可以提高疼痛阈值，改善葡萄糖耐量，对免疫系统有积极作用，并降低血压。事实上，在一些病人中，笑似乎与某些治疗特性有关。

And in a job as stressful and demanding as health care, it can often be the medicine that physicians themselves desperately need.
在一个像医疗保健这样压力巨大、要求苛刻的工作中，它往往是医生自己迫切需要的药物。

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