When I was a medical student in Scotland I worked under a famous surgeon as a hospital assistant but in my anxiety to please him I occasionally made mistakes and when I failed by a split second to hand him the correct instrument,he would bark:
You will never be a surgeon!!
When I graduated as a doctor of medicine,I took up the work of a general practitioner.The practice to which I had been called lay in the Western Highlands,a remote country district where I was the only doctor.Although the people were a self contained community they accepted me when I successfully treated an outbreak of diptheria among school children
Late one stormy December afternoon,I received a call from a farm.A young man,Robert Blair,had been wounded seriously,after battling with the icy wind for more than an hour the messenger and I came to the Blair's farmhouse
How did it happen?
Rob and I had gone to fell a fir tree for a new sheep pen but then due to an unexpected gust of wind the great tree toppled backwards and crashed upon Rob
Quick we will have to transfer him to the cottage hospital in the village
When we reached the hospital I rushed to the hospital telephone
This case requires utmost surgical skill I will have to call a specialist surgeon from the Victoria Hospital in Glasgow
Sir,I am an officer at the village exchange,all the telephone lines have been bought down by the storm
But I have a very serious patient and I have to call a specialist surgeon from the Victoria Hospital
We might reach the the rail junction at Stinchar where the station master might be able to convey the message through the railway telegraph