Everyone is worried about me when I take to the mountain alone. But it is a sanctuary, a private solitude. My legs pumping. The sound of gravel crunching beneath my shoes. The wind in my hair. Salty sweat on my skin. I am fearless. I am powerful. If I ran off the edge of the … Continue reading Mountain medicine
Every speciality will claim that it is the best. Surgeons will tell you that they are the most skilled. Family physicians will say that they make the most holistic difference to people's lives. Obstetricians will argue that they are responsible for two lives in one. But there is something special about Internal Medicine. It is … Continue reading Internal Medicine. A science or an art?
Mountain soul. Ocean heart. Wanderlust. A deep desire to belong. Spirit of adventure. A home-body. Introvert. Lover of humans. Love me. Quietly. Don't get too close. I will turn you into poetry. Both things can be true at once.
Life always has its way of forcing me to slow down. My hunger to live a big full life means I forget to breath sometimes. But life finds a way to remind me to breath, and to pause. And then to do nothing other than breath. This time it was a car accident. I had … Continue reading Pause
A patient called me a bitch today. To my face. He then told my consultant to go fuck herself. He was a heroin addict in need of his next fix. He was having a bad day. We all have them. Bad days. And needs for next fixes. We don't all go around calling people bitches … Continue reading Bitches we will be
A friend inspired me with a question recently: Do I ever wonder what the point is to all that we do? I think she was referring to the medical profession specifically. But I extrapolated the question to life in general. What is the point? We live and then eventually we die. And then at some … Continue reading 02/11/22 – Do you ever wonder what the point is?
Lately I've been contemplating the privilege of being a doctor. Not for the knowledge or the title. But for the invitation given to me by patients to take a glimpse into the most private aspects of their lives through the stories they have to share. Every time a patient tells me a story, however small … Continue reading 30/10/22
I made a list of all the things I’ve done alone. Just me. Sola. I travelled across the world for a job because I wanted to know what it was like to live on the ocean. The middle of the Atlantic is a liberatingly lonely place. I climbed the highest peak in Africa. I got … Continue reading Alone
Doctors spend their days labelling people. Depending on which speciality we work in, we all have slightly different ways of doing so. For example, my mom's physician would label her like this: 62 year old female #kidney donor 2018 with #mild renal impairment Or my sister's gynaecologist would label her this way: 29 year old … Continue reading Labels
Today was my last day at Brackengate Hospital; the tin-can COVID hospital where I have spent the past fifteen months; the Hospital of Hope. I was a part of the Brackengate team from day one. I watched the empty warehouse form into a colourful 300-bed hospital, with a rainbow "it will be ok" drawing above … Continue reading Farewell, Brackengate!
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