Between Gravity and Grace: Discovering the Role of Levity in Patient Care

“She had always been interested in standup comedy, and it occurred to her that what’s funny is true. That’s why people respond because the unspeakable is getting said.”

I came across these words in Ariel Levy’s 2017 New Yorker profile of Elizabeth Strout, and they stopped me in my tracks.

For years, I had struggled with the role of humor in my direct interactions with seriously ill patients. While humor with colleagues about our work is one thing, sharing light moments with patients facing life-altering decisions and profound suffering felt different. Wouldn’t it minimize their experiences?

Recent research tells us otherwise: humor helps patients confront their diagnosis without denying its reality. It creates brief psychological distance – allowing patients to momentarily step outside their illness experience and reclaim other parts of their identity. It’s not about minimizing suffering but finding moments of connection and normalcy within it.

Just last week, I caught a glimpse of this truth in action. I ran into a patient (I will call her Sarah) in our hospital lobby after seeing her a week before in the clinic. Her previously stable pain had worsened, requiring a complex medication switch. She was walking with her sister, both looking more relaxed than I expected, given that she was going through another line of a toxic treatment regimen.

When I asked how the medication transition went, she rolled her eyes and said, “My parents watched me like a hawk for five days straight!”

“Oh, I am so sorry!” I replied, and all three of us burst out laughing.

Sarah is a remarkable woman – managing metastatic cancer, raising young children, navigating complex treatments and pain control – but at that moment, she was simply a daughter being fussed over by worried parents, sharing an eye-roll with her sister. It showed me how humor allows people to step outside their illness, if only briefly, and claim these precious moments of normalcy. And I got to be a part of it too.