HEART BEAT:I THINK my memory mirror is slanted to reflect the good times. Most people can suppress the recall of bad days and I am no exception, writes MAURICE NELIGAN
Writing recently about the medical diaspora set me thinking about my own experiences. As my time of training in the Mater drew to a close, I had been exposed to all the relevant surgical specialities and had crossed the exam hurdles. I had decided that I wanted to be a cardiac surgeon. The speciality was expanding rapidly, with new developments on an almost monthly basis.
Prof Eoin O’Malley, who was heading the fledgling programme in the Mater, encouraged me and told me that he would look for a suitable training opportunity in a good unit in the UK. While waiting, there were now other things in my life; the Highest Authority, then working as an anaesthetic registrar in the Mater, had acquired me and I was now married.
Soon after marriage we had a stroke of luck. The Mater, ahead of its time, developed married quarters for resident registrars near the hospital. We were the first inhabitants of the flat in Geraldine Street, just across Berkeley Road from the hospital. It was a small flat but adequate for two working doctors.
At the time I was working for the senior surgeon in the hospital. He was a very pleasant man in the good times, but did not suffer fools gladly and could be irascible.
On Christmas morning, the doorbell rang and on the step was my fellow surgical registrar who was on duty on the day. He came to wish us the compliments of the season. The HA produced mince pies and tea for this overseas newly-arrived doctor who was an accomplished and experienced surgeon.
While we were talking the phone rang. A well-known voice bellows in my ear that the superior of a well known religious order was at that moment on his way into the hospital by ambulance and that I was to be there to meet him.
Diffidently, I replied that I was not on duty, but fortuitously Mr Z, who was on duty, was with me and would he like to speak to him? The voice informed me and the whole room that he didn’t want that person (he used a different word) going near his patient.
I put down the phone and my colleague asked me if that had been the boss, and why was it that he, although on duty, was not to see the patient. Was
he not trusted and should he ring the senior surgeon
immediately and have it out with him?
Happy Christmas I thought; this I can do without. Lying through my teeth I explained that I had seen the patient before. This feeble explanation was accepted with thinly veiled scepticism.
Céad míle fáilte, welcome to the land of fog.
I made my way to a Christmas hospital, complete with crib, lights, streamers and balloons, spotless and tidy with everyone in festive humour. A good sister asked me if I would have a little drop, seeing the day that was in it. Glumly I told her that I was in my way to AE to see a patient. On arrival in the department, all was quiet. People tend not to get sick on Christmas Day and the unit bore no resemblance to the war zone of Christmas Eve.
The staff had been advised of the imminent arrival and together with the nun in charge we waited and waited and then waited some more. I called the HA and told her to go on without me. That’s a surgical anthem known to the brethren worldwide.
Eventually an ambulance drew up, the swing doors parted and a trolley was wheeled in. “Well?” I inquired.
“He’s dead doc,” came the reply. “He was dead when we collected him.” Despite the day, there was to be no Lazarus moment. I turned to the nun, “Your province Sister, and I had better ring the chief”.
I did so and after a brief silence came, “What do you mean he’s dead?”
I bit my tongue and explained very politely that the subject fulfilled all the criteria necessary for a diagnosis of death. He then inquired if any of the community had accompanied the deceased.
“No”, I told him. “You had better wait until somebody turns up,” he said and put down the phone. I missed the bit where he said thanks, and sotto voce I wished him a memorable Christmas.
On my way back through a darkening hospital I met the nun who had offered me the drop. “If the offer’s still open sister, I’ll take you up on it,” Christmas starts now.
- Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon