Surgeon's stories

 In a previous story I related the case of the Cambodian splinter, but now I would like to describe a much larger one I encountered in Newcastle-upon-Tyne very many years ago. The patient was a member of the so-called Newcastle mafia - a notorious crime syndicate family from the Northeast. He had been driving his car at speed, lost control and collided with a stationary wooden picket fence coming in the opposite direction. This resulted in him being impaled through his chest. He was admitted to the emergency department in a state of collapse with the wood protruding from his chest as fortunately the rescue team had the wisdom to not try and remove it at the scene of the accident, electing rather to cut through it in order to free him. The accident and emergency consultant, a dour Scottish man of enormous experience, oversaw his resuscitation and immediately took him to the operating theatre where he found the stake had penetrated his left ventricle but had missed the coronary vesse...

 Social media has many advantages and good uses - but of course, I would say that wouldn't I, using it as I am for this blog. However it is not without it's problems and in a medical context, some people seem happy to share intimate details of their health issues in a way that one might not expect. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given the popularity of TV reality shows like "Embarrassing Bodies" shown in the UK on Channel 4 and running to nine seasons. However, I still find it extraordinary that people are prepared to send me graphic content of their nether regions, especially anal, to demonstrate the severity of their haemorrhoids or other problems. Fortunately I have a cast-iron stomach so receiving a picture of someone's prolapsed piles whilst eating my breakfast does not phase me unduly. Mind you, it is not just confined to social media - I was doing my weekly shop in Tesco on the Isle of Man many years ago when someone shouted across the busy aisles -...

    I have just moved from Battambang to Phnom Penh – hence the late arrival of this episode of my blog, but it has reminded me of an extraordinary sight I witnessed a number of years ago. Many houses in Cambodia are built of wood and rest on stilts to prevent them from flooding during the rainy season. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I looked out of my window one day to see a large group of men lifting our neighbour’s house from the ground by the stilts and carrying it down the street to be relocated some distance away. It transpired that the owners had purchased a new piece of land but didn’t want to build a new property. It certainly brings a whole new meaning to the expression “moving house”.   I do not know whether splinters were a problem for those carrying the house, but a splinter certainly caused a major problem for an elderly gentleman I saw with a nasty infected wound on his scrotum. It had been discharging pus on and off for several months by the ti...