I've long maintained that the distinction between "professionals" and "amateurs" is often very slight, often amounting to little more than that the former are paid and the latter are not. This is in no small measure because professional arrogance has been known to become intolerable if left unchecked.

So it happened that a patient was making his first visit to the doctor. "And whom," began the physician with utmost dignity, "did you consult about your illness before you came to me?"

"Only the pharmacist down at the corner," replied the patient.

A woman brought her baby in to see the doctor, and he determined right away the baby had an earache.

He wrote a prescription for ear drops. In the directions he wrote, "Put two drops in right ear every four hours" and he abbreviated "right" as an R with a circle around it.

Several days passed, and the woman returned with her baby, complaining that the baby still had an earache, and his little behind was getting really greasy with all those drops of oil.

The doctor looked at the bottle of eardrops and sure enough, the pharmacist had typed the following instructions on the label:

"Put two drops in R ear every four hours."

As the manager of our hospital's softball team, I was responsible for returning equipment to the proper owners at the end of the season.

When I walked into the surgery department carrying a bat that belonged to one of the surgeons, I passed several patients and their families in a waiting area.

"Look, honey," one man said to his wife. "Here comes your anesthesiologist."

A man went to see his doctor because he was suffering from a miserable cold. His doctor prescribed some pills, but they didn't help.

On his next visit the doctor gave him a shot, but that didn't do any good, either.

On his third visit the doctor told the man to go home and take a hot bath. As soon as he was finished bathing he was to throw open all the windows and stands in the draft.

"But doc," protested the patient, "if I do that, I'll get pneumonia."

"I know," said his physician, "I can cure pneumonia."

A man goes to a doctor for a physical checkup.

The nurse starts with certain basic items. "How much do you weigh?" she asks.

"One-seventy," he says.

The nurse puts him on the scale.

It turns out that his weight is 183 pounds.

The nurse asks, "Your height?"

Perhaps you've heard of the man who thought he was dead, when in reality he was very much alive. His delusion became such a problem that his family finally paid for him to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist spent many laborious sessions trying to convince the man he was still alive. Nothing seemed to work. 

Finally the doctor tried one last approach. He took out his medical books and proceeded to show the patient that dead men don't bleed. After hours of tedious study, the patient seemed convinced that dead men don't bleed. 

"Do you now agree that dead men don't bleed?" the doctor asked. 

"Yes, I do." The patient replied. 

"Very well, then," the doctor said. He took out a pin and pricked the patient's finger. Out came a trickle of blood. The doctor asked, "What does 'that' tell you?"

"Oh wow!" the patient exclaimed as he stared incredulously at his finger. "Dead men *do* bleed!!"

Mr. Lee was terribly overweight, so his doctor put him on a diet.

"I want you to eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for 2 weeks. The next time I see you, you'll have lost at least 5 pounds."

When Mr. Lee returned, he shocked the doctor by losing nearly 20 pounds.

"Why, that's amazing!" the doctor said, "Did you follow my instructions?"

Mr. Lee nodded. "I'll tell you though, I thought I was going to drop dead that 3rd day."

"From hunger, you mean?" asked the doctor.

Replied Mr. Lee, "No, from skipping."

A 92 year old man went to the doctor to get a physical.  A few days later, the doctor saw the man walking down the street with a gorgeous young lady on his arm.

At his follow up visit, the doctor talked to the man and said, "You're really doing great, aren't you?"

The man replied, "Just doing what you said Doc: 'Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.'"

The Doctor said, "I didn't say that. I said you got a heart murmur. Be careful."

A young man, fresh out of college, went to see his doctor one day.

"Doc, there's something wrong with me. Every time I stand in a baby's high chair and face southwest, and then touch my tongue to a piece of aluminum foil that's wrapped around an acorn, I get a strange tingle in my big toe. Can you tell me what the problem is?"

"Sure!" The doctor said. "You have way too much time on your hands!"

"I'm prescribing these pills for you," said the doctor to the overweight patient who wanted to lose weight without exercising.

"I don't want you to swallow them. Just spill them on the floor twice a day and pick them up, one at a time...."

"Doctor!" whined the patient. "I keep seeing spots before my eyes."

The physician scratched his head, "Why have you come to me? Have you seen an ophthalmologist?"

"No," replied the patient, "just spots."

A woman had a medical problem - her husband's snoring.

So, she called the doctor one morning, and asked him if there was anything he could do to relieve her "suffering."

He answered, "Well, there is one operation I can perform that will cure your husband, but it is really rather expensive. It will cost $1000 down, and payments of $450 for 24 months, plus payments for extras."

"My goodness!" the woman exclaimed, "sounds like leasing a new sports car!"

"Hmm," the doctor murmured, "too obvious, huh?"

My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start.

So far today, I have finished 2 bags of chips and a chocolate cake.

I feel better already.

Because of an ear infection, my young son, Casey, had to go to the pediatrician.

I was impressed with the way the doctor directed his comments and questions to my son.

When he asked Casey, "Is there anything you are allergic to?" Casey nodded and whispered in his ear.

Smiling, the pediatrician wrote out a prescription and handed it to me.

Without looking at it, I tucked it into my purse.

A man visited a psychiatrist to talk about his dreams. "Every night," the man said, "I dream that these three hideous monsters are sitting on the edge of my bed, ready to attack me."

"Hmmm," said the doctor. "I feel sure I can cure you of this problem. But the treatment will cost you somewhere between twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars."

"Thirty thousand dollars!" the man gasped. "Never mind getting rid of the monsters, Doctor. I think I'll go home and try to make friends with them!"

A woman accompanied her husband to the doctor's office. After his check up, the doctor called his wife into his office alone. 

He said, "Your husband is suffering from a very serious disease, combined with horrible stress. If you don't do the following, your husband can die. Each morning, fix him a healthy breakfast. Be pleasant and make sure he is in a good mood. For lunch, fix him a nutritious meal. For dinner, prepare an especially nice meal for him. Don't burden him with chores. Don't discuss your stress; this will probably make him feel worse. And most importantly, you must be intimate with your husband every day of the week. If you can do this for at least 10 months to a year, I think your husband will regain his health completely."

On the way home, the husband asked his wife, "What did the doctor say to you?"

"You're going to die."

A young mother paying a visit to a doctor friend and his wife made no attempt to restrain her five-year-old son, who was ransacking an adjoining room. 

But finally, an extra loud clatter of bottles did prompt her to say, "I hope, doctor, you don't mind Johnny being in there."

"No," said the doctor calmly, "He'll be quiet when he gets to the poisons."

A panel of doctors was asked for their opinions concerning a proposal to build a new wing to their hospital. This was what they said:

The Allergists voted to scratch it. 

The Dermatologists preferred no rash moves. 

The Psychiatrists thought it was madness. 

The Radiologists could see right through it. 

The Gastroenterologists had a gut feeling about it. 

While making rounds, a doctor points out an X-ray to a group of medical students.

"As you can see," she says, "the patient limps because his left fibula and tibia are radically arched. Michael, what would you do in a case like this?"

"Well," ponders the student, "I suppose I'd limp too."

Doctor: I see you're over a month late for your appointment. Don't you know that nervous disorders require prompt and regular attention? What's your excuse?

Patient: I was just following your orders, Doc.

Doctor: Following my orders? What are you talking about? I gave you no such order.

Patient: You told me to avoid people who irritate me.

A man walks into his doctor's office and says,

"Doctor, I've eaten something that disagrees with me."

A voice from the man's stomach says, "No, you haven't."

My friend Ida was slowly recovering from a heart attack. "Doctor," she pleaded with her cardiologist, "you must keep me alive for the next two years. I want to attend my first grandchild's Bar Mitzvah."

"We'll try," he replied compassionately.

In due course Ida gratefully attended the festive rite of passage.

Some time later she again spoke to her doctor. "My granddaughter is to be married in 18 months. Please help me to be able to attend her wedding."

I recently picked a new primary care physician. After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing "fairly well" for my age. A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking him, "Do you think I'll live to be 80?"

He asked, "Well, do you smoke tobacco or drink beer?"

"Oh no," I replied, "I've never done either."

Then he asked, "Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?"

I said, "No, I've heard that all 'red meat' is very unhealthy!"

"Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf?" he asked.

"No, I don't," I said.

He said, "Do you gamble or drive fast cars?" 

"No," I said, "I've never done any of those things."

He looked at me and said, "Then why on earth do you want to live to be 80?"

A strained voice called out through the darkened theater, "Please, is there a doctor in the house?!"

Several men stood up as the lights came on.

An older lady pulled her daughter to stand next to her, "Good, are any of you doctors single and interested in a date with a nice, girl?"

A very nervous man, accompanied by his nagging wife, was examined by a doctor.

After checking the chart, the doctor nodded and wrote the man a prescription for a powerful tranquilizer.

The man asked, "How often do I take these?"

"Let's start off with one every six hours. But they're not for you," replied the doctor. 

"They're for your wife."

Paediatricians tend to have very little patients.

A man goes to the doctor and tells him that he hasn't been feeling well.

The doctor examines him, leaves the room and comes back with three different bottles of pills.

The doctor says, "Take the green pill with a big glass of water when you get up. Take the blue pill with a big glass of water after lunch. Then just before going to bed, take the red pill with another big glass of water."

Startled to be put on so much medicine the man stammers, "Wow doc, exactly what's my problem?"

The doctor says, "You're not drinking enough water."

A woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very worried and all strung out.

She rattled off, "Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's wrong with me, Doctor?"

The doctor looked her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly said,

"Well, I can tell you one thing . . . there ain't nothing wrong with your eyesight."

A young woman wasn't feeling well and asked one her co-workers to recommend a physician.

"I know a great one in the city, but he is very expensive. Five hundred dollars for the first visit, and one hundred dollars for each one after that."

The woman went to the doctor's office and, trying to save a little money, cheerily announced. "I'm back!"

Not fooled for a second, the doctor quickly examined her and said, "Very good, just continue the treatment I prescribed on your last visit."

A middle-aged man wasn't feeling well, so he went to the doctor for a check up.

After a thorough examination, the doctor said, "Well, based on my examination, the best thing for you is to cut out all sweets and fatty foods, give up alcohol, and stop smoking."

The man said, "Well, to be honest with you Doc, I don't deserve the best. What's the second best?"

Old man Johnson limped into the doctor's office and said, "Doc, my right knee hurts so bad, I can hardly walk!"

The doctor slowly eyed him from head to toe, paused and then said, "Mr. Johnson, just how old are you?"

"98!" Johnson announced proudly.

The doctor just sighed, and looked at him again.

An old penny pincher had no friends. Just before he died he asked his doctor, lawyer, and pastor to gather around him at bedside.

"I have always heard that you can't take it with you. But I want to disprove that theory," he said. "I have $90,000 under my mattress, and when I die, just before they throw the dirt on me at my burial, I want you each to toss in an envelope with $30,000 within."

The three attended the funeral and each threw his envelope in the grave. On the way back from the cemetery, the pastor said, "I must confess. I needed $10,000 for my new church, so I only threw in $20,000."

The doctor then said, "I must confess too. I needed $20,000 for a new hospital I was opening up, so I only threw in $10,000."

The lawyer looked at them both and shook his head. He then said, "Gentlemen, I'm surprised, shocked, and ashamed of you. I don't see how you could dare to go against that man's final wish. I mean, I threw in my personal check for the full amount!"

A manager was told by his doctor to take up some sport for exercise so he decided to play tennis. After a couple of weeks, his administrative assistant asked him how he was doing.

"It's going fine," the manager said. "When I'm on the court and I see the ball speeding towards me my brain immediately says: To the corner! Backhand! To the net! Smash! Go back!"

"Really? What happens then?" the woman asked enthusiastically.

"Then my body says, 'Who? Me? Don't talk nonsense!'"

There was once an aspiring veterinarian who put himself through veterinary school working nights as a taxidermist.

Upon graduation, he decided he could combine his two vocations to better serve the needs of his patients and their owners, while doubling his practice and, therefore, his income.

He opened his own offices with a sign on the door saying,

"Dr.  Jones, Veterinary Medicine and Taxidermy - Either way, you get your dog back!"

What doctors say, and what they're really thinking:

"This should be taken care of right away."
I'd planned a trip to Hawaii next month, but this is so easy and profitable that I want to fix it before it cures itself.

"Welllllll, what have we here...?"
He has no idea and is hoping you'll give him a clue.

"Let me check your medical history."
I want to see if you've paid your last bill before spending any more time with you.