Delivery from evil

Newly qualified, idealistic, and inexperienced, I went to work in a hospital in rural Thailand. Patients travelled great distances to visit the foreigner's hospital. Many were helped by our standard treatment, hookworm medicine, multivitamins and iron. Our obstetrics practice was of the blood and thunder variety. Patients rarely came until they had been in labour for several days, arriving in obstructed labour, often with a uterus already ruptured. To establish an antenatal clinic was one of our main goals.

One morning a young pregnant woman arrived in my clinic room. She was neatly dressed in bright new clothes. I thought, “At …