Three Things You Can’t Do With A Broken Middle Finger

1. Write neat patient notes (my OT-sister says that means my pencil grip isn’t great. But it is functional. When I have a functioning hand.) 2. Draw blood on a neonate (because of the crab-grip required. Those little premies can be quite powerful when you bring a needle their way.) 3. Carry a heavy textbook

Letter to the Neonates

I know you will probably never read this, but I hope you will one day grow to be able to read. I hope that you will attend a school that has electricity and running water and teachers that love their job. I want you to know that you inspire me. When I see you in

Rest in Peace, Baby Boy

The law says that a dead body may not be left unattended until handed over to a coroner. I stared at the tiny grey body swaddled in blankets, waiting for the grieved mother to say her goodbyes. When she arrived, I wanted to cry with her. But who am I to cry for a baby

The Day I Cried in Hospital

Yesterday was a bad day. It’s been a bad couple of weeks, emotionally; me being weaker than I ever thought I could be. I’ve been able to retain my composure mostly. However, during ward rounds our consultant looked up disinterestedly while I was presenting a rather interesting patient and said, “Today is your last day,

Pouring My Heart Out About Birthing Plans

I’m not going to whine today. I’m not even going to be diplomatic. Because I’m annoyed. Because I believe in the rights of the patient, and because I love obstetrics and neonatology I’ve been reading a lot of blogs where women share their birth stories. And a lot of them write about how they felt

Blog it for Babies: About How I Almost Wasn’t

In keeping with my general broodiness and my current Neonatology rotation, I couldn’t let “Blog it for Babies” go by. BIFB is an attempt to raise funds and deliver equipment to a clinic in Bangladesh, where infant mortality is extremely high. They want to raise awareness too, so if you can’t afford to donate (like

Snow White’s X-Ray Phenomena

Radiology tutorials make me sleepy. I don’t find them boring, strangely… they just send me straight into narcoleptic episodes. But this one was fun: Basically, neonatal X-rays (yes, they do periodically expose those little things to X-rays) can be divided into different presentations. Grainy, Streaky, Blacky, Fluffy, Hazy, Bubbly and Dotty. And of course, Snow

The Greatest Commodity

It’s cold in Cape Town today. It reminds me of a time where hundreds of South African babies died for  a lack of incubators. Incubators are wonderful things, the way they protect the little children who arrive in the world a little too early. Something else that saved a lot of lives was the simple

A Lesson in Strength

They have decided to unleash me upon the baby wards again. I find this funny. My friends joke that they will need to check my handbag before leaving the hospital. Hah. Hah. They have sensors these days that trip an alarm if someone tried to steal a baby. Not that I’d steal a baby. I’m