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The Night of the Undead -Condom, that is… (female condom, I mean)
They’re back! Well, sort of… My somewhat sketchy memories of them -professional, you understand- are that they resembled the plastic bags you get at a supermarket… not female condoms (FC1s). They didn’t look at all like condoms! In fact, I still remember the jokes about needing Walmart greeters on entry and theft alarms on exit -this from the women themselves. No one seemed particularly…
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A Newborn Baby’s First for the New Year.
I feel a little like Edward Snowden here but it has to come out sometime. Someone will blow the whistle eventually… There is no first baby of the New year! I know each hospital in every city competes for the honour. And then, at least in Canada, there are the provincial competitions, and even national winners… But it’s…
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An Obstetrical Christmas
Christmas means different things to different people: stories surface, myths revive and the more hopeful among us find solace in the often blatant messages of charity and benevolence they radiate. I’m not sure why this time of year tugs so much on the heartstrings, but it does. We expect it; we await it; we demand it……
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A night on call
I got a thank you card the other day; someone had put it in my mailbox at the hospital. I suppose it was nothing special, but it touched me: a name I didn’t recognize, an enclosed picture of a beautiful baby, and hand-written with unforgettable penmanship a heartfelt thanks that I had helped the couple in their moment of joy and unexpected…
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Nature versus Princess Nurture
I’ve often wondered how much of a role acculturation plays in modelling who we are. Am I a gynaecologist because my mother restricted my prairie play-things to a rather effeminate teddy bear named Girl and a doctor’s bag that probably wasn’t? Or did I choose to play with them -as opposed to, say, waving tree…
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Reflections on the Bell Curve
We -many of us in the Western world at any rate- live our lives on a Bell Curve, thinking -hoping- we occupy a place near an out-lying position: the 5% area that presumes we are not just normal, but rather, exceptional… And given the population numbers, there is time spent worrying that we are inadvertently drifting towards the center…
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The dangers of perceived wisdom
The Court of Public Opinion -an interesting phrase to be sure. It implies the judgemental assessment of an action, an idea -an opinion- by society at large. An interpretation, not necessarily impartial or even appropriate. A reaction, really, to something that stands out as different in some way from that Public’s perceived norms. A Culture’s value system is usually encapsulated in what…
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The Concept of Sober Second Thought in Medicine
Perhaps it is the vain attempt of Age to maintain its relevance in a time of incessant, dizzying innovation, but it seems to me there is something to be said for reflection before action. We have here in Canada, a now much-derided political institution called the Senate whose members are appointed, not elected, and whose purpose is supposedly…
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Taking arms against a sea of troubles
A quasi-existential question: what do you do if you are a doctor dealing with a patient you don’t like? More importantly, however, what if you are a patient, forced by necessity or circumstance to see a doctor you don’t like? This is a question that is often framed in terms of racial, socioeconomic or cultural…
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