Telemedicine, Dad Jokes, and COVID-19
By: Jenni Friedman
Tags: Humor, Dads, Quarantine, Covid 19, Telemedicine

Yes, that is a CD collection and a fax machine

A doctor and his daughter go on a mission to transform a 30+ year old medical office into a telemedicine practice. A little levity during this tumultuous time.

A fax machine, a stack of CDs, and a recumbent bike are the first things you’ll likely notice when approaching my Dad’s new telemedicine office. The fax machine is still a mystery, the CDs are still in rotation, and the recumbent bike still has not been touched since I, his 32-year-old daughter, was an infant.

I don’t often get to witness my father working.

He is usually in a hospital and I’m usually at my own apartment with my husband and infant daughter. However, due to Covid-19, I’m quarantined at my parents’ house while my husband, a pediatric ER doctor, stays on the frontlines.

My dad is a 64-year-old neurologist. For decades, he ran his own private practice and eventually sold it to a big healthcare conglomerate (for all the reasons everyone is doing that these days). He still sees patients every day and adores his job. Whenever asked about retirement, he snorts “I plan to die before I have to retire.”

While he is reportedly an excellent doctor, technology has historically not been his strength. He types with two fingers (one on each hand). He uses an AOL account as his primary email. And he is constantly spamming me and my siblings with videos that were popular five years ago.

So when he had to convert his office into a virtual telehealth practice as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clear there were going to be issues.

Lucky for him, I was there to help.

The telemedicine platform is a video-conference tool with some souped-up features like a virtual waiting room. You sign in, you wait, and then my dad invites you into his video office and asks you to touch your nose.

The night before he opened shop, he had to sign up for the conferencing tool, create a profile, remote into his desktop, and bring up the confidential charts. After a not-so-brief intermission to explain what remote access was, we did a test run. I served as the pretend patient in my bright-pink childhood bedroom. He, surrounded by his beloved CDs, fax machine, and recumbent bike, played the doctor dressed in his favorite track suit and bathrobe.

These were the lessons I learned:

Lesson 1: When someone is yelling on a video call, you can’t always assume it’s a sign of anger. Instead, it may reflect a lack of trust in the microphone technology…and of their own daughter’s listening skills.

Lesson 2: Video conferencing and screen sharing are two separate things. This is not always clear and results in being asked “can you see my screen now?” 55 times. If in a similar situation, I recommend turning this into a drinking game.

Lesson 3: It is because of my father that I am a toilet-trained adult. A fact he reminded me with every one of my eye rolls after being asked how to close the screen.

Lesson 4: Covid-19 is not off-limits when it comes to dad jokes. (“You know who buys up all the toilet paper? Assholes!” or “Thoughts go out to all the married men who’ve spent months telling their wife ‘I’ll do that when I got time.’”)

Lesson 5: Browsers are a confusing topic. Yes, they can work without logging in to AOL.

Lesson 6: Not wearing pants during a video call is something that both video conferencing novices and veterans can share. In moments of tension, insert joke about not wearing pants.

Lesson 7: I really love my dad, but even in this crisis, it’s a relief that I can still make fun of him. It’s also a relief that he hasn’t mastered Medium yet and won’t be reading this.

Lesson 8: Finally, be nice to your healthcare team. Whether they are battling the frontlines of COVID-19 or trying to support other ailing patients, it is important to remember that talking at a normal distance from a computer camera does not come naturally to everyone.