A little give and take

Mount Isa, a dusty mining town in the Australian outback, was not known for its pioneering medical practices, or so I thought. I worked there for six months in the hospital accident and emergency department with a team almost exclusively made up of ex-pat British doctors. The pace was gentle, and, although this was a working holiday for me, the emphasis was on the latter. The permanent staff were grudgingly resigned to the situation.

Members of the mining workforce would occasionally attend for the treatment of chemical …