Vivid memories.
Roger Crouch shares vivid memories of his time at Maitland Hospital.
I was a resident medical officer (RMO) at Maitland Hospital in 1967 during a three month country term rotation from Royal Newcastle Hospital. Three RMOs were allocated with one going on a month’s annual leave, leaving two on duty during the week, but a one in two roster left only one on duty on weekends from 4pm Friday to 9am Monday!!
Background
I went to Medical School at Sydney University aged 16 years on a Commonwealth Scholarship with about 900 fellow students in year 1. I well remember during orientation the Dean saying ‘look around, after the first year half of you will fail, and the same after second year’. So 900 became about 220 who went on to graduate. In some ways it was wasteful but fairer than now requiring very high marks in the HSC: it rewarded those who buckled down and adapted to self-directed university learning.
I did my three undergraduate clinical years at Royal North Shore Hospital but elected not to apply for Intern/RMO there as Dr Roger Vanderfield (international rugby referee) was Medical Superintendent and there was a perception that you had to be a footballer to succeed. Anyway, I applied to Royal Newcastle Hospital because it had a reputation for practical hands-on experience. Actually, it was a bit of a medical backwater in those days. We worked a one in two night/weekend roster and were perpetually tired. My ‘record’ was 4 hours sleep in 96 hours during a busy obstetrics term.
After terms in surgery, anaesthetics, obstetrics, casualty and medicine I felt ready for the responsibilities of often unsupervised work at Maitland Hospital at the youthful age of 25 years. How wrong!!
Maitland Hospital
I have some vivid memories of my time at Maitland Hospital.
On my first day I had an anaesthetics list and the first patient was 31 stone in the old language having a sequestrum (dead bone from chronic osteomyelitis) removed from his forearm. He was so huge he lay on two operating tables placed side by side. It was quite terrifying because after induction paralysis you had to be sure of being able to insert the endotracheal tube.
Obstetrics was problematical with some patients coming in labour without any antenatal investigations. Some local GP/obstetricians were on-call if help was needed. I vividly remember an occasion when a woman needed assistance. I said to the GP ‘I will give the anaesthetic, you do the forceps’. He replied, ‘you use the forceps, I will give the anaesthetic’. He proceeded to drape a cloth on a wire frame over the patients nose and drip fluid from a bottle. I sniffed and exclaimed ‘that’s chloroform’. ‘Yes’, he replied ‘great for relaxing the perineum’.
Anaesthesia masks from the Maitland Hospital Collection.
On another occasion I was presented with a male patient with a dislocated elbow. Having never reduced such a dislocation I rang Royal Newcastle Hospital and asked if the orthopaedic registrar could come and assist. ‘No’ was the answer, ‘look after it yourself’. So, I anaesthetised the patient and quickly went around the operating table and to my great surprise and relief the joint popped back into place.
The worst episode was being presented with five people from a car accident, one of whom died. It was lonely and terrifying having to cope on your own.
I married after finishing final year medicine and we were able to take our partners with us to Maitland. We lived in married/single quarters in a detached cottage which, I found on a brief visit some years ago, was now the adolescent mental health unit. The remainder of the Hospital had changed so much with new buildings etc that after 50 years I hardly recognised it.
My time at Maitland Hospital was career determining. I decided that clinical medicine was too terrifying and elected to go into the ‘quieter’ realm of pathology where I had a satisfying career in Anatomical Pathology at Prince of Wales Hospital.