Comedian Ken Jeong, MD no longer practices medicine, but he maintains his medical license. This seems like a good idea in the fickle world of entertainment.
In this Wired video, Dr. Jeong explains why the knee reflex test is so important. Waving around the familiar small mallet with the red rubber triangular-shaped head, he says, "This has to be useless, right? No, it's not useless. We're not monkeys that use these just for props. We're not the Carrot Top of doctors here.
"And I can just show you right here. This is a knee. There's a tendon that connects the knee to the leg bone, okay, it's called the tibia. There's a tendon here. You want to check the reflex of this?
"Actually, it checks your whole nervous system in many ways to see if your reflexes are intact. Low thyroid levels in your body, which is very common, is called hypothyroidism. You actually will be hyporeflexic and you would not be able to elicit much of a reflex.
"So this sucker is very important, OK? Don't mock our tools. OK, we're pros. And we're sensitive, emotionally."
