From Guys I started house jobs in May 1961 in Brighton, as casualty/orthopaedic H S at the Royal Sussex County Hospital (a classic Barry, Victorian building).
The work was varied, and plentiful. My bedroom was located between two wards, with views down to the sea.The orthopaedic women’s ward was one floor down with “extra beds” in permanent use, and the casualty area one floor below. Action central! 120 hours a week was the normal.
A good snowfall brought 36 broken wrists one day; a chance to improve one’s technique, with follow up some days later. But a head in a biscuit tin in the ambulance from the railway, needing death certification got no follow up. A slice through a cornea from a broken mirror in a car accident of a professional cricketer was sent on to the eye hospital with good results.
After 6 months the H P job was different with an older, sicker clientele, and a depressing death rate, but the learning experience, and talented consultants were the positives.
The bright event was the annual Christmas hospital dinner/dance, held in the Royal Pavillion ballroom,where one of our junior doctors, a member of the Magic Circle, demonstrated his skills, with one success, followed by a failure that I can still see in my mind today.
My application for the obstetric job at the Brighton general hospital was accepted. My 6 months there was with a talented registrar, Geoffery (Bodger) Chamberlain. Every day working with him was a joy. Still only 2 housemen, so 120 hour weeks. And my colleague was carrying a growing pregnancy herself!
I remained at Brighton General for another 14 months as orthopaedic SHO, and married Susan, and had some dinghy racing wins in Merlin/Rockets.
Early June 1964 saw us embark on MV Franconia, sailing from Southampton to Montreal, through 2 days of Atlantic gales, then calmer waters, with wales and icebergs to see.
We had a Ford Cortina with us, and had a steady cross country drive of 3000 miles to Vancouver, for me to start a years anaesthesia residency. We realised the size of Canada by then.
At the end of the year, I accepted a position doing general practice with anaesthesia and obstetrics, in the centre of British Columbia in Quesnel. The population served was 27,000 with a main road going north and south, with towns 75 miles away in either direction. There was an 80 bed hospital, 2 surgeons and 8 GPs. the surgeons handled everything but head and chest surgeries,and fractured hips, but burr holes occasionally arose as being needed, and broken necks were stabilised, and sent to Vancouver.
As anaesthetist there was plenty to do , and I was able to handle some fractures and carpal tunnel surgeries, along with Caesarean sections which over 50 years have totalled over 1,000.
We did shifts in the emergency room, and did family doctoring in our offices. Anyone seen there and sick enough, was sent to the hospital, where we also looked after them.
The ambulance service in 1965 was provided by the local taxi service and operator, who ran a 1950’s station wagon, one bed with an impressive siren on the roof! In the event of a call, a doctor was asked to ride along with black bag.With temperatures down to –40 and plenty of snow, traffic accidents could be a feature, and the tally of deaths before seat belts were mandatory was significant.
After a year, the offer of a partnership was accepted. Our son arrived, with two more to follow, and we were able to get on with building a house.
I had done some flying locally, which showed the amazing countryside to east and west, but after a few autopsies on plane crash victims, that activity faded, and I did pilot medical exams only.
There were lakes close by, so we did water skiing and fishing, and skiing on a local hill in the winter. I joined the local ski patrol and was with them 29 years.
One Saturday afternoon I was in the emergency room, and an older man from out in the backwoods came in: “There is no vet in town, and I have a dog with porcupine quills in its muzzle, would you help, please”. So I had a look, a fierce looking dog, used for chasing cougars, with about 100 quills around mouth and face. They needed pliers to pull them out, and I needed anaesthesia to do that, and my training did not cover dogs, except to say they could easily fibrillate.
In the 1980s I took a sailing course, with colleagues, to enable us to charter sailing yachts out of Vancouver. We had trips sailing in Greece, Croatia, the Caribbean and around France and UK.
I have lived through a major evolution of medicine, and demographics have changed. We used to do ulcer surgery regularly, now it is laparoscopic surgery. Medications have improved, and we have seen new illnesses, cardiac management has evolved. We had the first ICU of a small hospital, along with dedicated internist. the hospital has shrunk to 33 beds, with expansion of the administrative staff occupying rooms formerly having beds for patients.
Our ambulance system is now modern, with proper vehicles and staff. Even air ambulances have now removed the need for me to accompany a patient with dissecting aneurysm from a car accident, or a spinal fracture on a ventilator in a military flight to Vancouver. I will no longer have to ventilate my Guillaume Barre patient here for 10 days myself.
In 2005 I retired from full time practice after 40 years. I did some locums and remained on the C.Section call list 1 week a month. I then found i could do 2 or 3 mornings a week in the operating room,assisting in the larger cases of general surgery, orthopaedics and obstetrics/ gynaecology.
in March, I had pneumonia, so took full retirement. Up till then I had felt it to be a pity to discard all that accumulated experience.
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