Cylindropuntia fulgida (Boxing Glove Cactus) In my six years as a medical student in the mid-to late 80s, every single oral exam I participate in begins with the question, “Is jy familie van Stan Christodoulou?” In fact, it’s the first question I get asked almost any time I encounter a senior white Afrikaans male at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine. This, even many years after I graduate and return to the faculty to take up an academic post in the mid-2000s. Stanley Christodoulou...

Content warning: Graphic description of a medical gynaecological procedure (D&C). Image: Bibbie Friman It’s around 2 am and I’m standing in an operating theatre in the bowels of Tygerberg Hospital preparing myself mentally to do a dilatation and curettage. Also known as a D&C or - in layman’s terms - a womb scrape. It will be the second time I do this procedure. The first time I do it alone. My supervising registrar is at home sleeping and has “every confidence” that I can do the procedure...

Content warning: Graphic description of human anatomy dissection by medical students. “Before you can hear, much less follow, the voice of your soul, you have to win back your body. You have to go on a pilgrimage beneath the skin.” ~ Meggan Watterson, Reveal ~ Lamprocapnos Spectabilis, "Bleeding Heart" I’m 19 years old. It’s January 1986. The beginning of my second year at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine. I’m in the anatomy dissection hall on the fourth floor of the Fisan...