Every day at eight o’clock sharp, in the dark and windowless X-ray viewing room, we shout and argue and laugh while looking at the brain scans of our poor patients and crack black jokes at their expense. We sit in a semi-circle, a small group of a dozen or so consultants and junior doctors, looking as though we were on the deck of the Starship Enterprise. Facing us is a battery of computer monitors and a white wall onto which brain scans are projected, many times larger than life-size, in black and white. The scans are of patients admitted as emergencies over the preceding twenty-four hours.
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