the graveyard

Another poignant piece of writing from the always insightful Bongi, a surgeon from South Africa, Mpumalanga province. All of us as physicians have our graveyards...as Bongi recounts in a painfully honest, personal post. The subsequent commentary is also worth reading....
uvealblues


this is a difficult story to tell but if i am to be true to the complete experience of a surgeon, i do need to tell it.

one of my seniors used to say that every surgeon has a graveyard hidden away somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind. he went on to say it was unfortunately normal, so long as you remember all the names engraved on the tombstones. at the time i thought he was being a bit melodramatic, especially seeing as though i could barely remember the names of any of my living patients. somewhat like one of our consultants i used to refer to them as the guy with the pancreatitis or the lady with the bleeding peptic ulcer. unfortunately i learned what he meant.

it was a tough call so when my pager went off at five in the morning i was not delighted to hear there was a gunshot abdomen in casualties. bearing in mind i had been on the go solidly for about 23 hours and i had a full day ahead of me, including an afternoon theater list, it was going to be tricky to juggle things. i charged down to casualties to evaluate the patient.