Under Thy Fingers*

My phone rings while I am taking ward round.

“Doctor, you must come quickly,” says the ER nurse, “We have a stab-heart in casualty.”

And I run, like they tell you in med school to run for stabbed hearts.

Being On Call Is Like Running A Marathon

… and none of that pseudo-philosophical “you have to pace yourself” bullshit.

Geeking Out About Lungs

I stood transfixed, with my finger deep in the girl’s chest. She was breathing easier now. With every breath, I felt soft, spongy lung tissue expand against my finger. How incredible is that, I thought. Perfect lungs doing their job. Almost ruined by the knife of a callous boyfriend. I had been slow on the

Weekly Whine: Small Luxuries

We have learned to adjust to these circumstances, because being angry every day makes the working environment unpleasant. But sometimes it is the small things, the absence of tiny luxuries, that plunges one into despair.

Auf Wiedersehen, Orthopaedics

How hard were these past two months? Together with one other intern, I looked after a firm of up to eighty patients. We did ward rounds with our senior colleagues only once a week. The rest of the time it was up to us to manage our patients and keep them alive (and know when to call for help).

To White Coat or Not To White Coat

In South Africa, two groups of people wear the white medical coat as a rule: medical students and old-school professors.

In fact, at my medical school, you celebrated your induction into student internship by getting to throw the white coat into the back of your cupboard. So the last time I wore a white coat was in the middle of my fifth year – two years ago.

Thing is, I’m a little over having to pick an outfit every morning.

The Post-Call Walk of Shame

When I’ve had a really rough night on call, the only way I can get myself home in one piece is to play the music in my car really, REALLY loudly. I can get a bit raucous. Yesterday as I was driving home after one such call, P!nk’s Walk of Shame came on my shuffle.

But I Don’t Want To Have Surgery | On Children and Consent

The little girl cried while the nurse removed her dressings so that we could inspect her wound. Hidden underneath a hip spica cast, her skin graft donor site had gone horribly septic, and we were trying to remedy it.

How To Run A Clinic Without A Voice

When I was asked by Figure 1 which one piece of medical equipment I valued above all others, I said “my hearing”. We were taught from the very beginning that a good history was our first step to an accurate diagnosis, and I have always valued a physician who LISTENS: to their patients, their students, their allies and their contemporaries.

I Left My Voice In Cape Town

Cape Town has a bug going around.

Couldn’t I at least get sick any other time, like a normal human being?! So, I pretended I wasn’t sick.