ABSTRACT
After Saturday night had blurred into Sunday morning, which in turn had smeared, with the aid of abundant lubrication from alcohol, into Sunday evening and the lupine hours of the night, attendance at a Monday morning thoracic medicine outpatient clinic, complete with an eight o’clock start time, was one of the last things that Sarah McKenzie, a third-year medical student, needed. Unfortunately, her fatigued, hung-over and shattered state would count as no excuse with the professor of respiratory medicine, Roland Paul, and the prospect of having to repeat the six-week attachment was even more onerous to Sarah than the idea of having to leave the comfort of her bed that day. She did not even dare to entreat a little sympathy from the professor as he would be likely to regale her, plus any patient who was unfortunate enough to be captive in the consultation room, with a 45-minute anecdote regarding his antics as a medical student and how he had once
passed his fourth-year exams with flying colours despite having imbibed enough whiskey to render an elephant unconscious. Sarah wondered if these were the same fourth-year exams he had passed with similar distinction after having been knocked unconscious the previous day in scoring the winning try for his medical school’s rugby team in the yearly showdown with their bitter rivals, or the same exams that had been negotiated with devastating aplomb despite having only recovered from meningitis five hours earlier.
