So, it turns out letting four different lots of people know I wanted to be called for all strokes at any time of the day or night and providing my phone number to all of them wasn’t enough to have anyone let me know about any one of the ten plus thrombectomies that were done over the weekend. I almost wept with frustration when I found out. Mind you, most of them were during the nights, and the poor INR who’s been on call since Friday looks terrible – his eyes are hanging out on stalks (or, as my Dad would colourfully say “his eyes were like piss holes in the snow”) – the poor thing. He’s actually still on call until tomorrow and the last I saw of him was him trying to find any colleague who will do his on call tonight so he can get some sleep. I hope someone can help him out. No wonder their rate of burnout is so high. I also managed to spend a very pleasant weekend exploring Montpellier that I wouldn’t otherwise have done, and plus if I’d been up overnight I’d have been reluctant to come in for this morning’s awake craniotomy (or the unpronounceable ‘chirurgie eveillee’ in the local parlance), and as it turns out, it’s the only one this week. So then I really would have looked sick. The awake craniotomy was very interesting, and I have made many notes about it, but to be honest the main thing I learnt was that grumpy surgeons who don’t talk, or allow others to talk, or have banter, let alone music, make for a very dull day. Also, neurosurgeons wielding a hammer and chisel is not for the faint hearted.
As promised: this…
…becomes this (the hat). Note also flattering scrubs, actually pale green, not blue as previously reported. Please excuse aged person technique type selfie – I was in a hurry and being furtive in the changing room.
View from theatre window. It’s actually astroturf but the plants are otherwise real.