Four Years Later: A Metamorphosis

Today this blog turns four years old. Technically a few minutes to midnight yesterday, but it’s much of a muchness really. Four years ago I wrote about practising speculum exams on sim-dolls in the skills lab. I was so embarrassed to do a bimanual examination on a doll in front of my male classmates. Everything was

Photo Friday: Skeletal Humour

In 2010 I shared this picture via Youth Journalism International of a skeleton in our faculty dressed up for the Fifa World Cup. (Click the link and scroll down to the middle-left.) Today we had a rather long clinical skills session for our anaesthesiology block. This little guy met us there. I laughed:

Top Tips for Tygerberg Part I

Every year I get a substantial amount of queries from aspiring medical students regarding the school I attend. It is a prestigious university with some interesting factors at play, so it is wise for Matrics (high school seniors) to investigate their potential choices. They will be spending six years there, after all.

Of oranges and IV-lines

The medical sciences are obsessed with hierarchies. Fresh-out-of-school doctors perform rectal exams and enemas till it pours, well, out of every orifice (if you’ll excuse the crude pun). Nurses where epaulettes which all are supposed magically to understand, and don’t you DARE call a medical professor a “doctor”. There are some things that distinguish a