Ruben Rajah, MD
Comedian and friendly neighborhood radiologist
It is a wet mid-November night in 2022, and I am trudging to an open mic in Manhattan’s lower east side. Apple maps told me the bar was around the corner. It wasn’t. Instead, I found four cop cars boxing in a suspect on a trash-strewn street. I had just moved from Seattle to Jersey City, partly to relaunch my stand-up comedy career. Becoming a comedian is a nocturnal, unglamorous process best pursued by those who are comfortable being ignored and living in the dark—perfect for a radiologist.
I signed up for four lessons in stand-up comedy in the winter of 2007 while working as a nuclear medicine resident in Seattle. The last lesson was a “bringer” gig, meaning we had to invite our friends to watch us perform a five-minute “set” at a comedy club. Radiologists are often understated, but I’m also a comedian…I rocked the house! I blame it on gamma rays altering my neurochemistry (but unlike Bruce Banner, I transformed into a comedian instead of The Hulk). I went on to perform in and around Seattle for two years before the demands of private practice ended my nascent comedy career.
During a vacation in New York City in 2022, I stepped onto a grimy stage at a Manhattan open mic and delivered an old five-minute set. As I walked off the stage, a disheveled figure emerged from the rear of the club. It was the club booker, who told me he liked the set and invited me to perform at Industry Night, as long as I brought five people. I’d been discovered! Reality check: Industry Night books 20 new comics every week. I was just another hopeful among the thousands stepping onto New York stages every night, chasing stardom.
Now, I live two lives—teleradiologist by day and comedian by night. At 3:00 pm, I swap the workstation for a stage. I compete for stage time with people young enough to be my kid. They joke about their sad dating lives, and I make them chuckle with my thoughts on married life and radiology. Three years after that fateful open mic, my wife and I produce Hi Brow Comedy, with shows in Manhattan and Jersey City.
Radiologists are not meant to be humorous. It’s hard to be funny when the public don’t know even know we exist. Just surgeons and ER docs appear in medical dramas. We only have ourselves to blame; we look at black-and-white pictures of organs and talk to ourselves in the dark, like a bunch of color-blind serial killers. I think it’s time the wider world knows that radiologists are real and can be funny. In a way, stand-up can be like radiology. One stares into a spotlight and delivers a monologue. The difference is that the comedian gets rewarded with laughter. As physicians, our profession is about helping and healing, and I believe that laughter is indeed the best medicine. So, maybe we should step out of the dark and into the spotlight.