Do extraordinary experiences make great doctors?

One day early in the 20th century Naguib Mahfouz was called to help a colleague manage a woman with a difficult labour (p 1178). After hours of struggle the body of the fetus was separated from the head. The mother died. No help could be found because there were no trained obstetricians in Alexandria. Mahfouz resolved that day “to dedicate my life to help women suffering from difficult labour” and became the first Egyptian professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Kasr-El-Aini Hospital. This was not the first dramatic incidence in Mahfouz's life. The …