II.II.IX JOURNAL ENTRIES Journal entries from my rotation in neurosurgery: I’ve been woken up at 3AM to see someone with a foreign body in their ear. This guy had managed to get a cotton bud stuck in there. At 3AM. Who the hell decides to clean their ears at 3AM? I’ve been practising my suturing technique since I was a […]
Privilege
II.II.VIII PRIVILEGE Halfway through my rotation, I started to realise what neurosurgery really entails. All the bureaucratic and administrative nonsense we dealt with on a daily basis was just clouding the bigger picture. The work that truly matters is the work happening down in the operating room. Neurosurgery is a specialty of extremes. When it goes well, the outcomes can […]
Floating
II.II.VI FLOATING As time went by, our situation in the neurosurgical department improved somewhat. Whereas before it was us house officers and a single higher specialist trainee (HST) keeping the department running, we now had two shiny, brand-new HSTs – Gary and Bob. Having only just started, they weren’t quite exceptional yet, but at least they managed to offload some […]
Scotland
II.II.V SCOTLAND While the Basic Surgical Skills course itself didn’t allow much time for us to enjoy the city of Glasgow, we had a few extra days afterwards to explore more of Scotland. First up was the incredible city of Edinburgh, which genuinely felt like stepping into a medieval haven. Over the two days we spent there, we had the […]
Soaring
II.II.IV SOARING Coming back from Turkey, I was relieved and somewhat humbled to find out that the department had actually survived my absence. I guess that’s when I realised that no one in the hospital is indispensable and that business goes on as usual with or without someone – no matter how much responsibility they have. Looking back, I find […]
Istanbul: Day Four
II.II.III ISTANBUL DAY FOUR One last day. One last day, and Akash, Zara, Manish, and Kamal decided to spend it shopping – again. I could never understand them. Meanwhile, Priya, Rohan, and I would be visiting one final highlight before our departure that evening: Topkapi Palace. Once the administrative and residential heart of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 years, […]
Istanbul: Day Three
II.II.III ISTANBUL DAY THREE Needless to say, everyone woke up hungover. I, for one, woke up hungover and full of regret over the kiss that never happened. And what better to shake it off is there than exploring more of what the city has to offer? Together with Rohan, I’d be visiting the most popular landmark in Istanbul – the Hagia […]
Istanbul: Day Two
II.II.III ISTANBUL DAY TWO Once again, everyone wanted to go shopping. I simply couldn’t bear the idea of missing out on what the city had to offer for something I could do online whenever. And so, I took to the streets on my own once again. What started off as me intentionally getting lost ended up becoming a whirlwind tour […]
Istanbul: Day One
II.II.III ISTANBUL DAY ONE And just like that, we were on the last leg of our journey – one that took us right to Turkey’s largest city and formal capital. Often referred to as the crossroads of the world, Istanbul is a city straddling two continents, where Europe and Asia meet across the Bosphorus. Shaped by Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman […]