Corpus - conversations about medicine and life

Out of the box: memoir of a trainee nurse, Dunedin Hospital 1884

2 October 2017 Leave a Comment

M. H. Fraser

Rachael Francis, Historian in Residence at the Pioneer Women’s Hall, Dunedin, and a box of treasure.

Dunedin’s Pioneer Women’s Hall, set up in 1942 in a former lawyer’s office in Moray Place, was the end result of a project initiated by Dr Emily Siedeberg, New Zealand’s first woman doctor. Envisaged as both a monument to the city’s foremothers and a centre for women’s activities, it remains in use by various community groups today. Recently, historian-in-residence Rachael Francis has been delving into the boxes of memorabilia stored in the hall. One of her finds is this memoir by M. H. Fraser, one of the first nurse trainees at Dunedin Hospital in 1884. Fifty years later, in 1934, Nurse Fraser wrote the following memoir about her experiences.

Nurse training [in 1884], by M. H. Fraser

Towards the end of 1884, the trustees of Dunedin Hospital realised that their nursing needs could no longer be met by stray trained nurses visiting the town and by untrained people. The men patients were nursed by untrained men, the women and children depended mostly on the visitors, some of whom had come in search of healthcare for themselves. In our home, a friend was being nursed after a major operation … and the nurse in charge was visited by a trained nurse, who was temporarily employed in the hospital. She brought news of the Trust’s decision [to train nurses] and turning to me said, “You are the type. Why not apply?”

This appealed to me at once and it was decided that I should write to the secretary, Mr Burns … A week later saw me in harness.

“This thing lies luminous”: on being concussed

2 October 2017 10 Comments

Iona Winter

Day One.

Misjudge a wall, knock myself out, and come to sitting on the floor. Tears. Shock. Pain. I can’t figure out what’s happened. Get up, apply icy fingers to the protrusion, and drive into town for work on automatic pilot. Surreal landscapes. It feels like a truck hit my head. I soldier on through the day, take paracetamol, go home, look up concussion on the internet and meet multiple criteria, then hope for a quiet weekend.

Understanding Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

25 September 2017 2 Comments

Dr Rosamund Vallings

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (known as ME/CFS) is a complex acquired condition. Sufferers experience a range of debilitating symptoms, including fatigue, and problems with pain, gut function, brain function, immune, cardiac and endocrine systems. Dr Rosamund Vallings has been treating and researching ME/CFS for over 25 years. Here she describes what drew her to this work, and where the research is heading.

I qualified in medicine from the London Hospital Medical College in 1961. This was followed by house surgeon appointments in Plymouth, Devon and the London Hospital. I then set off to New Zealand as a Ship’s Doctor with Port Line, spending some time in NZ, before returning again as Ship’s Doctor to England to marry one of the officers. We settled in England for 2 years and during that time I worked in Family Planning developing an interest in Women’s Health. Then it was back to NZ with our first 2 babies.

We settled in NZ, had a third child, and I initially continued to work in Family Planning and built up a small General Practice focusing on female hormone disorders.

Writing down catastrophe

25 September 2017 4 Comments

Fiona Farrell

In June this year, six years since Christchurch was shaken awake into a new understanding of the city and the geology beneath it, I published a novel. Decline and Fall on Savage Street was prompted by that event, and the years that succeeded it as the city shimmied then settled to a kind of peace, or as close to peace as this country can manage. (There have been a couple of quakes already today; yesterday there were seven, though they have been tiny and distant, barely discernible. A reminder, however, that this is not perhaps the most tranquil place to perch, above the interface of a couple of major tectonic plates.)

Writing about this event and the political and corporate activity it unleashed has been a curious business.

A short history of the smile

25 September 2017 3 Comments

Barbara Brookes

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight” – Phyllis Diller.

But it’s not easy to produce a smile on demand. A smile is a response to something, and therefore hard to manufacture. Yet whenever we are faced with a camera these days, we are expected to smile. It’s great if the camera catches us in a moment of pure spontaneous mirth, but rather excruciating if we have to wait for photographer to compose the shot, our smiles tightening into a kind of rictus. Yet in the current selfie culture, smiling for the camera is almost obligatory.

This wasn’t always the case. Mark Twain apparently once said, “A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity, than a silly smile caught and fixed forever.” Perhaps that’s why we still don’t smile for passport photographs. If Facebook is any guide, however, the silly smile is how millions of people will now be remembered.

The matter of teenage sleep … actually

18 September 2017 Leave a Comment

Barbara Galland

I can’t remember where I came across this cartoon, but it’s one that irritates me. The teenage bird with the cool-dude-backwards-cap assumes the stance of a seasoned raconteur. With one deliberate wing gesture, he begins: “Actually” (proclaiming absolute authority on the matter), “my species is not nocturnal: I’m just a teenager”. Of course I’m just assuming he’s a he-bird, but even if he’s a she-bird, it doesn’t matter. The cartoon sends the wrong message. It labels all teenagers as being rebellious on the matter of sleep.

The higher authority, the owl, listens intently, but has no wise offerings.

Let me be a human ‘owl’ for a moment. ‘Sleep’ is my job. Sleep is my passion. I’m a child health sleep researcher, and naturally I sleep. My species is diurnal and I have some wise offerings on the matter of teenage sleep.