This had me in stitches so I had to record it for posterity: "If you fart at school, you have to shout "safety!" and then you have to run and touch the nearest door handle. Otherwise you could get beaten up." - My little brother, on the goings-on at a certain public school for boys

No offence but....

I was on a ward round with *Jo, my registrar, when one of our patients remarked carelessly to her: "your lady colleague there looks like she should still be in school." It's the sort of thing I've come to ignore (or my day would be filled with annoyances). But Jo snapped back immediately: "How rude! She's been through long, hard training to get to where she is today."

It reminded me of some other nasty/ignorant comments I've had:

"I'm really grateful to all you Filipinos - where would the NHS be without you?"
(several erroneous assumptions there...)

"Nurse! I need a bedpan! NUUURSSSSE!"
(usually a gaffe by the same patients who call white male nurses 'doctor')

"Which part of China do you come from?"
(Huddersfield!)

"You look far too young to be a doctor."
(Would you say this to your financial adviser? or your lawyer?)

and of course, anything that begins with
"No offence but...."
(most of these don't bear repeating!)

Day 3 on Rheumatology

Ward 2 appears to be staffed mostly by a bevy of camp male nurses of various nationalities. *Emilio swaggers up to the nurses' station. "Guess what?" he croons. "I'm off to New York and we're staying in a 4-star hotel!" "Who are you going with?" asks *Michaela, a female nurse who is about 6 feet tall and looks like a man. "Oh, Curtis, of course!" Eyelids flutter all round.

Battle Hospital is a strange place. The block across the carpark is literally a pile of rubble. Within Ward 2 there are a few disused bays where not only the paint, but the lights and other fittings are peeling off the walls. I arrived on the hospital shuttle bus, and almost missed the stop. More prominent than the sign with the name of the hospital on is a large placard: "For Sale". In an operation called "Consolidation", the remaining departments are to be moved across town to be become part of the Royal B. Meanwhile the small community of nurses, physios, security guards, doctors, cleaners etc. that remains struggles to offer modern medicine within what can only be described as little more than a ruin. This is not to say Battle is a nasty place to work - I rather enjoy the fact that it is a small hospital and that you are a person here rather than a bleep number.

Dr. K, my new consultant, is a bit of a character (I guess they all are). We're looking at a chest x-ray, and he goes: "hmm... the lungs look fairly clear.. well, there might be a bit of shadowing in the bases, but then, she's Big and Fat." He says this with complete nonchalance. Later, he muses "all these old, crumbly patients, they sit there going nhgh nhgrgh nhgrg (mimics demented old men chattering)..." then he interrupts himself - "mustn't say that, I'll be next (he looks in his 60s). My old man, he was like that when he died. You know, I used to be quite rude when I was younger..."

..so am back home. There's not a lot to do here, merely to melt in the 35-degree heat. The fact that I've only about 2 people to catch up with reminds me of how unpopular I was at school. The old house looks the same, and the volume of suicidal poetry I composed as a morose 14 year-old remains in the bottom of the drawer - right where I left it more than 10 years ago.
Am feeling very rested though, as mom and dad are spoiling me as usual. The Diesel bag I usually use for work looks pristine now that mom has finished with it (the stains from various patients' body fluids washed away). Clothes return washed and ironed and meals just materialise. I could get too comfortable...