A strange realization that it’s the first time I’ve actually saved a life in five months as a doctor. Everyone on the outside imagines we roam the wards performing routine acts of heroism; I even assumed that myself when I started. The truth is, although dozens, maybe hundreds, of lives are saved every day on hospital wards, almost every time it happens, it’s in a much more low-key, team-based way. It’s not a doctor performing a single action so much as him implementing a sensible plan that gets carried out by any number of colleagues who at every stage check to see if the patient is getting
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