Every sea going doctor takes along a medicine chest, and Jack Faulkner and I will be following in the footsteps of ocean-bound surgeons including Robert McCormick of the famous HMS Beagle when we stow our own medical kit on our skiff. In April this year, we’ll be rowing for 3600 miles – all the way […]
You get to do the usual general surgical procedures, which is bowel surgery with its many variations. You get to deal with orthopaedic cases. And you get to deal with obstetric emergencies. For me, the latter was the least familiar. As general surgeons, we don’t get that much training in obstetrics and gynaecology anymore. I […]
Read More… from A Pleasant Surprise – Caesarean Section in the field
Hepatitis B is a devastating virus that infects around 250 million people worldwide and is endemic proportions in parts of Africa. Left untreated, it can cause cirrhosis, liver cancer and early death. Tackling the spread of this virus is essential and vaccination programmes have been started in many countries since 1990 including the Gambia, with […]
Yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black: not the potting order for the coloured balls in snooker, but the colours in some of the worst wounds that I have dressed as a nurse. Dealing with incontinence is not the most gruesome aspect of the nursing role: it can be far harder to stomach wound care. […]
I’ve always been a keen sailor and I regret the fact that I’ve never had time to sail around the world. After I qualified as a doctor, I worked in anaesthetics and intensive care, before deciding to become a GP. I volunteered for the RNLI crew at Brixham, a five minute drive away from where […]
As-salamu alaykum! (“May peace be upon you” in Arabic). This is the common greeting heard here in Bokoro, a town about 300 km east of N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. Bokoro is in central Chad, in the southernmost part of the Sahal belt of Africa, so it is an extremely hot, dry, desert climate with […]
Conor Kenny is a doctor who has recently returned from Greece. He began his assignment working at Idomeni, a transit camp for refugees on the Greek border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. After residents of the Idomeni camp were evicted, Conor moved to Lesbos to work providing healthcare in specialised camps designated for […]
Read More… from A lost generation – working with young refugees in Greece
I have always had a passion for the wilderness and high places. My first expedition was after leaving school when I joined a six-week trip to Kenya with British Exploring. As well as working in a small orphanage near Lake Naivasha, I got the chance to climb Mount Kenya and take 24 camels on a […]
Sarah is a doctor working on the MV Aquarius, a search and rescue vessel in the Mediterranean Sea. She shares her experience… “Full body aches” is a complaint that every MSF medical staff has seen. In most instances, it’s the body’s way of manifesting stress in a context where physical suffering may be socially acceptable […]
Sarah is about to start her first assignment for MSF, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She blogs about why she decided to sign up, how she’s been preparing, and one very important question… This time a year ago I was an NHS general practitioner in Banbury. In two weeks time I will probably be […]