Product Description

True Tales of the ridiculous, the silly, and the just plain weird cases doctors face—lampooning the medical bureaucracy that makes practicing medicine and getting medical care such a headache.

Doctors have a sick sense of humor. This is the deep, dark, and hilarious secret of the medical profession revealed by the irreverent Dr. Douglas Farrago in his popular satirical magazine, Placebo Journal—affectionately known by its thousands of fanatic readers as “Mad magazine for doctors” and called, by U.S. News.com, “raunchy, adolescent, and very funny.” Now, in The Placebo Chronicles, Dr. Farrago has compiled the best of the most outrageous and uproarious true stories to come out of the ERs and examination rooms of doctors all over the country.

Submitted by actual physicians, these are the stories they tell each other at cocktail parties and in doctors’ lounges, trading sidesplitting and truly unusual tales of their most embarrassing medical moments, the grossest things they’ve ever seen in medicine, their favorite Munchausen patients, and much more, including “The X-Ray Files”—mind-boggling anecdotes and images of the oddest foreign objects doctors have removed from patients. Not for the faint of heart, the humor in The Placebo Chronicles is brutally funny—just what the doctor ordered to guard against the ill effects of an M.D.’s worst enemies: the Medical Axis of Evil, a.k.a. drug companies, HMOs, and malpractice insurers.

Fully illustrated with fake advertisements—for pseudopharmaceuticals like OxyCotton Candy and Indifferex (the mediocre antidepressant)—this refreshingly honest collection invites doctors and patients alike to share the laughter, a liberal dose of the very best medicine.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 14 reviews)

bitter doctors, please leave the profession

As a cancer patient, I find it alarming but not at all surprising to read how much doctors hate their patients. I've spent a LOT of time with docs in the last couple years and, wow, it would be so helpful to know in advance which ones have such hateful attitudes.

Surgeon #1 finished my surgery in record time and joyfully announced to my family -- "no cancer!" There was cancer, and, in fact it was advanced. He had ignored the enlarged lymph nodes revealed by the pre-surgery cat scan, and in his hurry to finish the surgery, he didn't even see the primary tumor that was in plain sight. There was never an apology, and he's still billing me.

I'm betting that, like Farrago, he complains about his patients for fun and profit. Thank goodness my new onc actually cares about the HUMAN BEINGS that he treats.
July 23, 2008

Are You a Doctor or a Patient?

I could see what was funny about this book and I appreciate the serious dedication required to get through the grind of schooling and to actually practice. I can even appreciate the contempt these practitioners must feel with patients that don't adhere to regimen, or narc seekers who think they are pulling the wool over the practitioner's eyes. These issues were presented in a very humerous fashion by the Doctors - often it is a hoot.

But it also made me sad because though things are better than they used to be, there is still a core problem with communication between doctors and patients. For various reasons, certain people get a certain kind of treatment and labels that others don't. There is a documented problem with gender, race, and class bias, and it doesn't take too much imagination to see that it might cut both ways. I could go on for a while about this subject but I won't - google it.

The contempt some of the doctors unload about their patients was for me a bit hurtful. I have often sat on the other side of a doctor's desk, not always the case but more often than not a person with a HUGE ego who is irritated at the prospect of having to explain what is wrong to the yokel patient. I have been treated like dirt, or a drug addict by MDs for perfectly legitimate and well documented problems. But judging from this book, I guess we are all a pain in the butt to these guys. They must be relieved that the healthcare crisis is keeping so many people out of their offices.

I liked the book but suggest another book, this time BASED ON THE PATIENT'S EXPERIENCES OF THE DOCTORS. Now this could be really really funny! With chapter headings like, "The Doctor Who Didn't Think I Knew He Was Manually Raping Me and Other Stories", and "How Can I Get This Doctor To Listen To Me Outside Of Batting Him On the Head?" or "I Told Him I Was Allergic To That Stuff". It could be really funny!

I took special note of the litigation issues these doctors express concern about. I've had at least three egregious, actionable, horrible snafus done to me by MDs over a period of about 25 years. I have NEVER taken any of these practitioners to court, even when I was urged to by other professionals. I imagine more people don't file than do, and the doctors should be more appreciative of that.

Read the book to find out about the other side; you've got to have compassion for them but keep a balanced view and look out for my new book, the companion volume, coming out soon.
July 29, 2007

Reality bites!

This book is the one you reach for after a long, hard day with whiny patients, screeching moms and parents who keep forgetting to give their epileptic kid his phenobarbital.

You need to put it all together and solve the mystery of how so many people make it from day to day with the worst habits and total inability to take care of themselves...

The irksome part of being a doctor is that you start out thinking it is all so noble and then you realize that in a room full of patients, staff and you, no one would ever agree with you.

Placebo Chronicles will radically revise your perspective as a health care provider and remind you how to get by from day to day! A great book for anyone who wants to know what real life in health care is like...Warning: you will never be able to watch any of those "dramedy" medical shows without snickering over their rank stupidity ever again, so read at your own risk!
December 17, 2005

mybookopinion MISSED THE POINT

As a st doc I can attest to the many stories in this book...in particular are the 2am ER narc seekers, heres a hint people, wether its in the ER at 2am or your FP at 10AM if you are a seeking narcotics everyone knows it, no one beleives how your rx was stolen, or how your toilet has passed so much codeine it should be given its own DEA number. Great read for those looking for some relief from the PC world we live in when you can be sued for telling a patient she is too fat and the once noble profession has been reduced to something akin to a walking lottery ticket, you can find refuge in the chronicles at least until that sheriff tracks you down with that subpoena.

To the reviewer with the 40 lb tumor heres a hint: the fact that these stories make headlines are a testament to their rarity. It is also getting more difficult to practice medicine due to the bulging waste lines...palpating organs is more difficult due to the fat folds so I can see how a tumor maybe missed in a 500 pound pt. On another note, spend a few weeks in a county ER, ride with an ambulance crew, spend a few days fighting with an insurance compnay to pay for something, or take a listen to some drone pharm rep lecturing about their product using scientific words and biostatistical analysis that were probably not taught between the time they left the sorority and the time they got the drug rep required implants and you will realize that making fun of these things is the only way to keep sane. I didn't even mention the paranoia at being sued by everyone you lay your hands on.....Or you can save yourself a week, read this book with an open mind and you will be inside the ER to see the 42 year old at 3AM for a cough they've had for the last 2 years but just got around to it at 3AM on a Friday or argue with the mom loaded with gold about the $4.00 bottle of Tylenol her kid needs...then watch her throw the Rx out getting in a better car than what you drive wondering why?
September 29, 2005

I sure hope this is farce...

I sure hope this is farce. It reads like a bunch of articles written by the doctors of the several people I know who have been turned away by their doctors for being hypochondriacs (or worse, in case of the several "my favorite Munchausen" sections of this book), only to turn out to have incurable bone cancer, breast cancer, giant ovarian cysts, and blocked up gall bladders. If the first doctor had not called up the specialist for a laugh (see the "new doctor vs. old doctor" list), these conditions may have been caught before they reached the critical or fatal stage. Read this if you want to get inside the head of the doctor who told you that you're fat and lazy rather than the one who caught finally "caught" your 40-pound tumor (true story).
September 25, 2005

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