Do doctors ever have fun while actively practicing medicine? I don't mean the fun they have while playing golf or fishing or boating or traveling on their time off. I mean when they are involved with patients who are ill or when they are med students learning how to handle such patients. . From those patients who can't tell right from left to those who swallow kumquats whole; from those who pester their doctors about their "bronchial" (aargh!)conditions, to those who call at three a.m to say, "Doctor, I was just lying here wondering.," these true episodes cover the gamut. My book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the O.R., is a collection of stories that takes the reader from medical school through surgical training, into private practice, and to the day of my retirement as Medical Director. These stories are amusing and at times poignant, as well as personally revealing.