deliverance

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DELIVERANCE

this weekend was the 30th year reunion for our medical
school class
we were not able to attend this weekend but
it made me think of the movie deliverance starring burt reynolds
jon voight and ned beatty
as i thought back to the end of our junior year of med school

if you saw the movie youll see the connection
if you have not seen the movie or dont have grey hair
just say that things didnt turn out well for those three guys
in that movie
banjo music pigs etc

my best friend from medical school and i never ever had a
good experience when we got in a boat on water
there are three times we did that and none of the
experiences turned out very well

i know ive mentioned this story before but on the event
of our 30 year reunion here it is again

our junior year was the hardest year we had except maybe
well probably worse than the intern year
think sleep deprivation for a year

we rotated together in groups of 12-15 people
we spent a lot of time together that year
almost as much as we spent with our families

we did eternal (internal) medicine general surgery obstetrics
gynecology and pediatrics
after the weeks on the wards in eternal medicine i ruled out
internal medicine
after the 2 months of doing general surgery i quickly ruled out
surgery as a career
we spent 4 weeks on the burn unit probably the worse experience
of all my med school education
then we did obstetrics
we did the see one do one teach one method
see a delivery do one then teach the next student how to do one

through that year we all got close and decided that at the end of
the year we would take a canoe trip down the buffalo river and
fish canoe swim and have one last time together before we
all moved on to our own medical paths we would take

it should have been a sign when a cold front moved in in may
it was cold in the 50s windy foggy misty rain
we should have stopped there
but we didnt

heck we survived worse during our rotation as third year med
students doing all the scut work that was required of us

we learned to dislike nurses but later as interns we developed
an appreciation for how much they knew
they saved me many times that intern year

one student was even told by a surgery attending staff
are you stupid or you just dont care

after that year we could do anything
except a canoe trip

we all got our canoes
we divided up 2 to a canoe
think 6-7 canoes together going down a high fast river
on a cold wet day
maybe we should have watched that movie first
i can hear that banjo music now

in one canoe was a future obstetrician and a future plastic surgeon
that was not a good combination
my niece almost did not have her ob/gyn available to her when
she got older

as one of my friends now deceased and who was a family doctor
and i were canoeing we were at the back when we saw
clothes food canoe paddles float by
we recognized it as that from the above two students
they had not reappeared around the bend

we fought our way back up against that fast high river
and found the obstetrician bobbing up and down in the water
his head was like a bobber on a fishing pole that was
being pulled under by a fish

the plastic surgeon was in the water
holding on to an old limb and had
the other hand holding the obstetricians hand
which was what was keeping him from going under

we could see their canoe all mangled under a log
with his foot caught in the corner of the canoe
we jumped in and as we hit the canoe it dislodged his foot
he bobbed up the limb broke and they both floated down to
the bank where we rescued them

we put them in our canoe and floated back to everyone else
we divided all our clothes up so we all had some dry clothes on
and decided were through

we paddled ourselves to our camp site as fast as we could
it was about a 20 mile trip
we just about froze
the obstetrician and plastic surgeon were purple when we got
back to camp

despite a large camp fire and blankets i dont think any of
us ever got warm until we got home the next day

the plastic surgeon has her blog sutured for a living  and she wrote about
that day recently on the eve of our reunion
the obstetrician still probably has scar tissue on his leg where
his leg was caught in that canoe

and yes that was the last time i got in a boat with my best
friend from medical school

deliverance
we were lucky we were delivered safe and alive that weekend

the organicgreen doctor