OPs off

They aren't goping to do A's ovarian graft taking operation. They couldn't in the end get agreement from a tissue bank to store it for us. Ms M put in a lot of effort but no dice. This means that A's chemo can now start without further delay and that will probably happen next week when her oncologist gets back from her hols. For my part there is progress with my project but some frustration with the paceI'm forced to go at.
There is going to be lots of trouble next August with jobs and junior doctors. They haven't sorted out the transito the new training system and I'm afraid there may even be strikes and protests as junior doctors will be forced to change specialty or move to new areas by a computerised national job matching scheme.

Go to the right A&E

Had a rough on call on Thursday night at K. 55 year old man who had a valve in his heart replaced two weeks earlier turned up.
I spoke directly to the guy who did it for him. As soon as I said pain in his back he knew what I knew. He had come to the wrong hospital. We couldn't fix it here.
Very quickly he'd be too unstable to transfer and he needed a scan. Within a few minutes he was too unstable to scan. He arrested and died. Aortic dissection.
A good friend of mine, the casualty officer who had been with him since he arrived was really distraught. We fought hard for a good two hours but we had no chance really. I gave half a thought to opening his chest in the A&E department but I decided I had no answer to the "and then what?" question. No matter what I found in there there was no way I could fix it. His fate had been sealed when he picked he called the cab for K.
The moral of the story people. If you've had reacent heart surgery and something happens in the line of chest pain or breathlessness, go to the hospital that did the surgery or you will probably die.

Dr Mr Dr Sturgeon

Well that was a really miserable post.
The good news is Prof loved my idea and I am enthused to the extent that I couldn't bare the idea of leaving it half finished. That means I think I'm going to go the whole hog and do a PhD. A PhD also has currency outside medicine as everyone knows what it is and a PhD from I (the ninth best university in the world no less) would be handy if I wanted to get work in the world outside medicine at some point.
It will mean three years in academia rather than two. But I hope to be able to secure funding from elsewhere so that I won't have to spend the whole time going to the C.