Ferewell Karen

Karen Chung is a Kiwi doctor who has been working for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) for the past year in Swaziland; I am her replacement. This is her going-away cake, baked by the staff of Matsapha Comprehensive Clinic. On her last day in the clinic, the staff threw a party. Lots of food,…

Kombis

I really enjoy the first few weeks of living in a new country. I look for novelty, difference, quirkiness. After a month or so, odd things become accepted, mundane and attract my attention less. Each morning at 7am, two Landcruisers collect the expatriate health workers from the team houses and transport them to the clinics…

Gigolos

I had just had a cup of tea for breakfast, so I was starving hungry by lunchtime. The clinic staff suggested going up the hill and turning left to Fedic’s cafeteria for a meal or turning right to the local strip mall for a bag of chips (french fries). I plumped for the healthy option…

“Is there a doctor on the flight? Can they please make themselves known to the cabin crew?”

This announcement usually quickens the pulse of any medic on board. I still remember with horror the air traveller who collapsed with a tension pneumothorax on a transatlantic flight about 15 years ago. A group of British hospital doctors were returning from a medical conference in the USA and saved the patient’s life using tubing…