Bone doctors can sometimes forget  there is a heart and a mind attached to the bone being fixed. Orthopaedic surgeons are the butt of many jokes for some unknown reason. They think it is because everyone is envious of the vast amounts of money they make and of course, they would like to think that.

What do you call two orthopaedic surgeons looking at a chest X-ray?
A double blind study.

What’s the difference between a carpenter and an orthopaedic surgeon?
A carpenter knows more than one antibiotic.

How do you hide a 20 pound note from an orthopaedic surgeon?
Put it in a textbook.

They are not what they are made out to be. Mostly. 😉

I am lucky to work with some funny, gentle and bright orthopods. One of them has changed from a purely professional colleague to a friend through the last 2 years. Yesterday, I shared with him my frustration over any meaningful improvement in the awareness of mental health issues within the medical community and beyond. I feel as if nothing has changed and no lessons have been learnt from Saagar’s death. Many others like him continue to suffer in silence. I feel that I go on banging my head against the walls completely in vain.

He wrote back:
“Saagar, has somehow had a profound effect on me, even though I never met him.

I have a young woman whose humerus I plated last week, and in clinic yesterday I could see her whole life starting to come unravelled: can’t exercise yet, not at work, not concentrating. All the things she used to give her self-worth are not available. Not despair, but the beginnings. So we talked about the dangers, and she agreed to see our psychologist.

You and Saagar have made that change in me, so keep doing what you do: it works.”