Why I became an anaesthetist

It was the long hot summer of 1987 in Sudan, the temperature was 45°C in the shade, and as a fourth year medical student I felt it was time to contribute a little to my country, hard hit by a year of drought.

I was part of a medical caravan, a team of volunteer medical students and doctors working at Karima General hospital, a 250 bedded hospital in the middle of the northern desert serving an area of 200 000 square miles.

We boarded the train on Monday morning for a journey of 180 miles. Everyone was in high spirits but prepared for a long wait because the train had a maximum speed (when in working order) of 40 miles an hour and in many areas the single track was shared with oncoming trains. We arrived four days later.

Three days into our stay in Karima I became increasingly unwell …