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High stakes on a plane

Oliver Kooseenlin
CT1 Urology Pinderfields Hospital
2 May 2025
Essay competition General
(134)
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It had been a long day, my mind cluttered with unread emails as the train hummed on. Suddenly, a shopping bag slipped from an elderly woman’s hand, spilling groceries. She barely reacted, staring at her hand as her grandson scrambled to collect the items. “Nan, you dropped everything!” he laughed, but she didn’t respond. Her eyes met mine, blinking as if clearing a fog. Her voice, slow and slurred, murmured, “Sorry, I just feel a little off”. Something felt wrong. This wasn't mere clumsiness but a silent alarm bell, a surgical emergency unfolding amidst the mundane.
Introducing myself, I gently inquired about her symptoms. "Can you raise your arms?" I asked. Her left arm wavered; the right remained motionless. Her history, reluctantly revealed, included a recent ‘tumble’, a detail she'd dismissed as trivial. My mind raced—could this be a stroke? An intracranial haemorrhage? The "FAST" mnemonic, a staple of stroke diagnosis, flashed through my mind: Facial droop, Arm weakness, Speech difficulties, Time to call emergency services. Without scans or senior clinicians, what was once just a memory aid from a lecture now felt very real. If this was a neurosurgical emergency, ‘Time’ was critical.

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