Médecins Sans Frontières - Portrait of John

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF226491

Date taken / Date Recorded 15/12/2017 12:00 AM

Country Unspecified Country

Commissioning section MSF-UNITED KINGDOM

Copyright MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) External Media, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★★★ (C)

Video format h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 5m4s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 699.76 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist Retranscription_EN John - Surgeon

(Are you MSF?)

It's been a very rewarding experience, a very enjoyable experience. Challenging at times. I don't look back and regret anything that I've done or anything I've seen with it. It has broadened my horizons, made me more aware of the rest of the world, which probably is a good thing. We live in a very self-focused age, so it's perhaps very good to get away from that.

(John Buckels
Surgeon)

(What was your favourite MSF project?)

I've enjoyed all of the missions. The most challenging and perhaps the most exciting was when I was in South Sudan. It was my first mission in South Sudan. There was a lot of fighting going on. In eight days we had 320 gunshot wound patients. Fortunately, there was an excellent nurse who helped with the triage. We managed to sort out the patients who needed very urgent surgery and those who did not. But it was a particularly busy time. That was exciting as well as challenging.

(How does working with MSF compare with a typical surgeon’s position?)
In the NHS, you'll have lots of resources. You'll have a big team and you'll have a lot of modalities to investigate patients. When you work with MSF, you're going to have to cope with most aspects of surgery. That will include general surgery, certainly a lot of orthopaedics. If there’s trauma, that might be gunshot or machete wounds. There will be some plastic surgery, usually not too complicated but it will certainly involve skin grafts. Of course, there will be some obstetrics, like caesareans. It’s a very important part of the work. Where I've worked until now, there hasn't been any x-rays, which is sort of challenging. There were very few blood tests available, so you're going to depend for your diagnosis on the history and a good examination. It certainly can tighten up your clinical skills.

(What kind of injuries do you see working with MSF?)
You deal with quite a lot of burns. The reality is that most people in the places I've seen in Africa will be cooking on open sort of charcoal wood fires, so you get quite a lot of burns, particularly in children. In terms of things I've never seen in the UK, there were children who found sort of unexploded grenades and played with them, inflicting terrible injuries. Usually more than one child at a time comes in with multiple tiny lacerations, and sometimes penetrating lacerations into the chest, head or abdomen.

(Are surgical resources in the field limited?)
Usually there's not been a doctor anaesthetist. There's been a nurse anaesthetist. The anaesthetics have been ketamine or spinal anaesthetics. In the theatre there's not usually a ventilator. The monitoring is relatively simple: a pulse oximeter and not much more. The theatre kits are usually kept fairly simple and straightforward. It's quite easy to adapt to that. There were no x-rays at most of the missions. There's a relatively limited number of blood tests that can be done.

(What’s the worst part of your job as a surgeon?)
I think it's when you're in a situation where you can't help people at all. That might happen because people come to the hospital very late. They might have tried traditional medicines through a traditional healer and that might delay by days how long they’d spend before they appear. A lot of patients don't have easy access to the hospital. There’s no ambulances.

(What do you enjoy most about working in the field?)

When you get somebody in who's really quite sick and then you're able to turn it around, despite working in a relatively austere environment. Then actually having the pleasure of seeing him go home.

(John is MSF, are you?)

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Portrait of John - Surgeon (ENG)

Portrait of John - Surgeon (ENG)