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Sleeping in the Call Room
Sometimes in the sounding night, with footsteps rushing past and light-bound shadows flashing orally under the firmly closed door, I awaken, startled, and wonder if I am next. It takes me a moment to clear the fog of that constantly unsettled semi-sleep, and understand that I am not at home. And won’t be for uncountable time.…
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Vehicular Obstetrics
Here I am in New Zealand, land of narrow roads, one lane bridges, and at least for us North Americans, the necessity of switching our cultural allegiance from the right to the left hand side of the road. Personally, my greatest struggle is remembering to get into the car through the correct door. Everything seems…
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You Got Me Pregnant!
Some things seem to go unappreciated don’t they? They’re background noise. Shadows in the moonlight. You might think that this doesn’t apply to medicine, but it does. Much of what we do is taken for granted –or at least taken for expected… appreciated, but for a variety of reasons, not publically acknowledged. And that’s fine…
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The Unexpected
What I like about the unexpected is that you never expect it. It’s a surprise. A gift. And the world is filled with this stuff. Each day at work –I’m a gynaecologist- there are little treasures hidden within appointments, presents in names. Especially the unpronounceable Persian names that unravel when I try to work at…
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Cohabitation?
Cohabitation is the bête noir of some cultures and the realization of a belle époque for others. Lascivious as it sounds, it doesn’t necessarily exemplify freedom and liberation, though -it is a direct and unsubtle abnegation of long held moral and religious values for many. But why? Why would the decision to share one’s life need…
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The Solopsist
I have always been influenced by something Lewis Thomas, the American polymath writer-physician once said at a lecture I attended. He felt he would be better served by a doctor who had read Shakespeare than someone who had merely focussed all of his formative years on learning medicine. His point, I think, was that to…
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The Goddess of Small Things
Every office needs a goddess. Every doctor needs to see one now and then to keep things in perspective. Separate the two Magisteria. I have a goddess –not self-professed to be sure, but in a pinch, self-acknowledged. She comes to see me once a year or so, for reasons that are not at all transparent. It…
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Are We There Yet?
There are some things you just have to get right -or else. But, or else what..? Continuing exposure, even to the most egregious injustices risks dulling the senses; eliciting not indignant shouts but shrugs, excuses not action. Accommodation. There are benefits that accrue to adaptation, of course –if one lives next to a pulp mill,…
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