In my pre-computer youth, I used to love reading the ‘Laughter is the best medicine’ section in the old Readers’ Digest.

As GPs, we often encounter humorous situations in our rooms. Here are a few of mine. And they are all true.

1. A young and very anxious father rushed in with his four-year-old son whom he had just noticed had one leg shorter than the other. Standing and facing us we could see that his right leg was straight, but his left leg was bent at the knee, suggesting his left leg was longer than the right.

I asked the boy to make the short leg longer and he tilted his pelvis the other way, straightened his left leg and bent his right knee to produce the alternative version of the apparent deformity.