A memorable patient: An air male delivery

A few days earlier I had arrived to take up my post in an outpatient clinic in a remote part of Gabon, Africa. I was finding the handover period quite stressful. The “good spoken French” that I had described in my curriculum vitae proved not to be quite so good when faced with 40 to 60 Gabonese patients each morning. The French drug names and prescribing habits were a complete mystery to me. I was beginning to wonder if this really was the job I wanted.

One morning a woman arrived in established labour. I couldn't work out what was presenting vaginally, but my colleague immediately diagnosed a transverse lie and ordered an urgent helicopter evacuation to hospital for …