11 out of 10: A Collection of Humorous Medical Short Stories

by Freida McFadden, Brian Secemsky MD, Robert Balentine MD

"What is your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, where zero would be no pain, and 10 would be if you had an attack of kidney stones while in active labor, and while all that was going on, you were set on fire. Starting with your genitals. And then you were disemboweled, and the bowels that were removed were then also set on fire. And then while you were running around in active labor, passing a kidney stone, on fire with your bowels also on fire, you accidentally stepped on a Lego with your bare foot. And that Lego was also on fire." "It's an 11." Medicine can be funny. It can be sad, painful, inspirational, but also sometimes funny. "11 out of 10" is a collection of humorous medical stories from practitioners in all fields, ranging from physicians to nurses to EMTs to medical students. Some are totally true, some are exaggerated, and some are mostly fiction. But every single one of them aims to put a smile on your face. All profits from this book will be donated to Deworm the World Initiative, a charity that aims to treat parasitic infections in children in developing nations.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Medical, Anthologies, Book Club

244 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 2015

About the author

#1 New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and Amazon Charts bestselling author Freida McFadden is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury who has penned multiple Kindle bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. She lives with her family and possessed cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

Note that I am maxed out on friends, so I apologize in advance that I can't friend anyone back!

Reviews

[Anomaly · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Funniest Part Was The Blurb Used To Sell It

I don't know what incompetent algorithm at Amazon thought I would be interested in this book, but it needs to be decommissioned and erased from every hard drive known to mankind. This "humorous" book had barely enough slightly-funny moments to count on one hand - or two, if you happen to find body shaming of large people, toxic masculinity (omg the big football player cried after being abused by his fiance! wow! so funny!), mockery of mental illness, letting someone eat food a co-worker spit in, and desecrating a dead dog under command of a superior to be "funny." I don't.

In fact, a vast majority of these stories speak of what's basically malpractice, disrespect, and sexual harrassment - the latter in a context that's fond of and amused by the perpetrator. We're supposed to find "humor" in how a man with Alzheimer's disease mistakes his reminder notes (such as "brush teeth every day") to be aimed at his dog and ends up giving the poor pupper his medications. We're supposed to ignore that an overweight woman is being likened to a walrus. We're supposed to forgive the horribly insensitive and un-funny story about mistreating and neglecting mentally ill people which turns out to be a crappy attempt at a supernatural horror story. And we're supposed to just accept the one story about a man in a psychiatric facility who both openly carries a gun and callously talks about shooting the patients who "go crazy" - or whatever the wording was, I refuse to go back and look because once was enough.

All this book did was make me hope beyond all hope that I find the key to immortality because not only are the staff in these hospitals completely disrespectful of the patients who are living, but also of those who are dead. In one case, we're supposed to think it's karmatic justice that an elderly woman panics and thinks everyone is dead because some staffer maliciously unplugged her call button when she overused it. In another, the entire surgery team gawks at a woman's breasts when she's in for a brain surgery... and then the narrator touches the woman's brain on prompting by another doctor. And then there's the disrespect of a cadaver donated to science, trying to rename him and gawking at how his muscle tissue looks like chicken. It's just sickening. (And did I mention desecrating a dog's corpse? Because, yeah. The poor guy's beheaded to test for rabies, which... yeah, fair enough, it's necessary. But then they take the head back and reattach it to the body for a family because they refuse to just tell the family outright what testing for rabies entails.)

I can't believe I was stupid enough to trudge through this whole thing, hoping that there'd be at least one story to make it worthwhile. There wasn't. In fact, the funniest part of this book - at least, in my opinion - is the blurb used to sell it. The rest is just a mix of moderately interesting fluff and often-insensitive or offensive drivel. I'm glad it was rented on Kindle Unlimited and I didn't waste money on it, but I wish I could have my time back. Since the proceeds from the book all go to a charity, I'll just consider it as if I did volunteer work for a charity - maybe that way I'll feel better about my choice not to quit this book a couple stories into it.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5⭐️ I picked this book up with recent news that this book is going to be unpublished by Jan 1st of 2025, and also that all profits from this book go to charity.

This book was a giant mish mosh of random medical field related short stories written by different authors. I knew picking this book up, but my problem with it was the writing styles from the different authors were extremely different as were the different stories.

Some stories were funny and light hearted, others were somewhat amusing, and a few made my head hurt and I skipped over.

Overall im glad I read this so I had no regrets when it becomes unavailable on KU

[Lenny Husen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Rounding down, because they stories read like ones in an extremely forgettable magazine, the kind that they keep sending to your house, and you are wondering how to get them to stop. There were a few essays/vignettes that were actually thoughtful or funny or compassionate, but most missed the mark and strayed into silliness or borderline callousness.
In its defense, i didn't enjoy Pre-Med or Med School, and never felt super confident as a Resident. So there were a lot of triggers here for me--nothing bad, but nothing terribly uplifting or clever either.

But here's an awesome thing: all proceeds from this book go to "Deworm the World Initiative, a charity that aims to treat parasitic infections in children in developing countries." How cool is that?

[Terri Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doctors don't always have it made!

Being in the medical/dental field of work most of my working life, you definitely run into your own set of crazy!! This book was a delight to read. Brought back so many memories and special stories of my own! Definitely a great read! Makes one remember it's still good to laugh and learn continually. Always Enjoy your best health while you still have it.

[Janice Clifford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved, loved, loved

I read this book in record time. Some chapters made me laugh out loud; others made me shake my head in disbelief; and others I read to my husband. Our daughter is currently in nursing school, so I'm purchasing a paperback copy (I have the Kindle version) for her. I'm now inspired to write a similar one about my years as a teacher (Vivid retired me), but I have stories that would make parents shudder in fear.

[Ivka_daisy · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a medical professional, I didn’t find these stories funny—instead, they felt like a cry for help disguised as an anecdote book. Reading them made me cringe and want to quit medicine ASAP, as they triggered some serious Vietnam flashbacks. The only story that actually made me chuckle a bit was from a veterinarian—so does that even count?

[Geri · Rating 1 out of 5]

Being in the medical field I was excited to read this book, thought there would be some good humorous stories. I was wrong. 95% of them were long stories and I kept waiting for the punch line at the end and one never came. For the 5% of okay stories, honestly not worth the read.

[Kevin Muir · Rating 1 out of 5]

No way this stuff happens

Some of the stories in this book are so far off from anything that can possibly happen in an actual ER its just plain stupid.

[Hannah Gautreau · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just okay. I didn’t find the stories to be all that funny.

[Ashley · Rating 1 out of 5]

FS: "Newark, NJ - Patient, Deborah Skemp, woke up today at 6:30 a.m. during rounds by her physician, Dr. Watters.

LS: "Though Thanksgiving had come and gone, I had to give thanks. Thanks for my career. Thanks for the opportunity to become a physician. Thanks for my family. Thanks for my health. I had nothing to complain about. Nothing at all."

Location: New Jersey

Chapters: 35

Kindle Unlimited

[Jolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

11 of 10 by Freida McFadden is a collection of humorous medical short stories. I found several that made me laugh.

[Christina Mages · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed throughout most of this book. definitely a great book

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of time! Forget hilarious, tese stories weren't even funny. I could tell you so many more funny stories from my nursing career than what was in this book. Don't bother reading this...like ever🤣

[Brenna Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took me way too long to read

[Cori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. Laugh out loud. All medical people, especially MDs need to read this to remember the humor in our lives. Dr. Grumpy has long been the writer of my favorite medical blog, and he has made me laugh for years. These stories are real. Trust us.

[Jen (The Jenerator) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some were cute, some weren't. Overall enjoyable.

[Nannie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not enjoy this book.

[Lauma Ose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nemaz nezināju, ka autorei pamatdarbs ir medicīnā. Šajā grāmatā apkopojusi savus un kolēģu smieklīgos atgadījumus no medicīnas ikdienas...tikai lielākā daļa nebija īsti smieklīgi.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Just could not get into this one at all. Blah.

[bri gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

eh

[Yamini Kashyap · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a layman with no view whatsoever of the professions in medicine, I found this book extremely hilarious and entertaining. A lot of medical professionals do not wholeheartedly agree with the happenings chalked in the book, but it is surely some thematic light-hearted content if you may.

[Christine M in Texas (stamperlady50) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freida is know for her twisty Psychological Thrillers, but she has a few others as well. Dived into this novel of short stories with several contributors.

A collection of humorous short stories told by several contributors including Frieda. The stories were funny, entertaining and troubling. I cannot begin to imagine what doctors go through on a daily basis. I was particularly entertained by Freida and Doctor Grumpy’s stories. Each story was unique and something I never would have expected. As a lover of Grey’s Anatomy one particular scene would make for a fabulous show. If you have read these short stories and recall the cadaver scene this would make an epic episode. Well done!

[Andrew Niemann · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was somewhat entertaining, and a couple of the "installments" did cause a chuckle - some of them were just rambling thoughts. A more accurate title may have been "random" medical stories. The sarcasm regarding ICD-9 WAS appreciated.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a fast read with a bunch of short stories. Some I enjoyed and some I didn’t. It was written by various people about their real life experiences and that part was interesting. It didn’t grip me and make me want to keep reading, but was an easy read between bigger books.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

palpable

[Chantal Boucher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Liked the short stories and the change ups. Some of them have all this build and aren’t exciting. I was looking forward to finishing the book overall and starting something new.

[Shalanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a huge Freida McFadden fan and I wanted to read this book before it became unavailable. I am probably not the target audience for this book, as I am not in the medical field, and I failed to see the humor in most of it. Many of the stories were kind of sad to me. I understand that many people in difficult fields like medicine or law enforcement have morbid senses of humor, but in some stories, I felt a complete lack of respect for the patients that were being talked about. I can't imagine the massive responsibility it is to literally hold someone else's life in your hands and I'm sure this book would go over well for others in the medical field to vent, and share funny (to them) stories, but it definitely wasn't for me. Huge respect for all those going down this path...I nearly couldn't finish reading about that anatomy class, let alone actually having to do that! Yikes! And yes, I did laugh through my gagging at Dr. Freida getting cadaver juice on her (YUCK!)!

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I set a goal this year of reading all of Freida McFadden’s books, mainly because they’re quick, easy, enjoyable reads, and because there was a checklist and I love a good checklist. This was the last one on the list.The best stories draw from your own experience. Write what you know. But for the stories to draw people in and mean something, you have to know your audience. I think the audience for this book is mixed. Some of the stories are so focused on policies and procedures within the medical field that they don’t appeal to the average reader. These come off as dry and unreadable. Then there are a few gems, written by Freida and a few others, that are stories we can all relate to – needy, demanding people, overworked employees – that shine and will make you laugh. I think focusing on who the audience is would have made this a better collection of stories.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoy McFadden’s thriller novels. As a doctor myself, I expected to enjoy this book more than I did. Like many medical people, I tend toward a darker shade of humor, certainly a coping strategy for the traumatic training programs we experience. Some of the short stories were funny, especially the ones that are clearly satire. I was disappointed to read a story about a male victim of domestic violence which was somehow supposed to be funny because he was a big strong guy and he cried? Story about a patient coming into a clinic with a gun, shooting people, then the doctor has to shoot down the patient? Not funny, totally missed the mark with me. The two stars are for the handful of funny stories and the fact that the proceeds from book sales go to a worthy charity.

[Jacklyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of humorous medical stories from practitioners in all fields. There's stories from medical students, physicians, nurses, EMTs, and even a veterinarian.
This was an entertaining read. It would definitely be more entertaining for people in the field, as some of the terms or scenarios go right over your head, unless you've been in the field yourself. I thought it was quite enjoyable and laughed a few times at the ridiculousness of some patients and the unfortunate luck of some practitioners, and even learned a little along the way! I recommend this if you're looking for something different, unique, and funny with a splash of education.