Tag: Obstetrics
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Regret-me-nots
Sometimes if I awaken during the black of a cloudy moonless night, I am gripped by an uncomfortable feeling I can’t identify, a feeling whose source is almost within reach, yet blurred and formless like a ghost. And then, as silently as it approached, it disappears again into the night leaving only shards like broken…
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Deliver me from evil…
We take a lot for granted nowadays, don’t we? Our individual life-spans are short, our collective memories only slightly longer; most of us cannot even imagine how things were before the advent of modern medicine, before the recognition of germs as a cause of infections, before Semmelweis, a 19th century Hungarian doctor, realized that deaths…
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Saudade Considered
There is something bittersweet about the loss of a loved one isn’t there? Sorrow, to be sure: that feeling of floundering in deep, dark, swirling water, the ineluctable pain of absence, and the almost unbearable inability ever to see her, hear her, or touch her again. And yet, peeking through all the darkness and the…
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What is it like to be a…?
I should have known not to answer her question like that. I should have seen the book she was reading; I should have seen how heavy her briefcase was… But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m a doctor now -an obstetrician/gynaecologist- but in the beginning I wanted to head in an an entirely different direction:…
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The Doula
For some reason, there are opposing sides in this issue and it’s hard even to approach the topic without raising the eyebrows of one side or the other. It’s not at all clear to me why there should have to be this division, but I’ll attempt a dispassionate consideration of the concept and then venture an opinion for…
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Antenatal Genetic Testing
When I bring up the subject of antenatal genetic testing, most of my patients don’t even bat an eye: it’s just what you do nowadays. Of course you want to know as much about your unborn and developing baby as possible! But there are some -just a few- who look at me suspiciously, searching for a reason I…
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Forceps
Forceps seem to be controversial in some quarters. To be clear, I don’t find them at all controversial nor do my patients by and large. But I realize that for some, forceps are the standard bearers for all that is intrusive and perhaps malevolent in obstetrics. Everybody seems to have an aunt or second cousin somewhere that…
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Pain
I don’t want the title to imply that I am some sort of expert on pain; I am, like most people, pain averse. I do not necessarily understand pain; I see it in others and assume it has similar characteristics in common with what I experience and so I avoid it whenever feasible. I understand when others have…
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