Long before I had an inkling that I wanted to study medicine and then be a doctor, when becoming an orthopaedic surgeon was still occupied in that part of my brain by a desire to become a game ranger, I dislocated my right shoulder. The injury dated back from primary school and was recurrent, popping out every few months. It was painful when it happened but my mother learnt how to put it back without hurting me, doing a gentle manoeuvre that engaged the joint and let it to slide back into place almost painlessly. Much further down the academic line and after putting other’s dislocated shoulders back I came to know that my mother was in fact using a well established technique, the Kocher Technique. Like all things in medicine, it was named after him because he published it in a journal, but in fact it was first described in Egyptian hieroglyphs 3000 years ago.

One year when I was fourteen I participated in the school gala. Everyone thought I should be a good swimmer as I was a good runner, but halfway down the lane at the municipal pool my right arm caught the floating lane divider and my shoulder popped out of joint. My father was there, talking to Rod Conacher, the principal of the school, but he was not watching. When my arm came out of joint it would stick up like I was asking a question in class. That is how I tread water in the middle of the pool. My mother jumped in to save me, because she was astute enough to see I could no longer swim and that my shoulder was out of joint.

As they waded toward me my mother later told me that Rod Conacher asked my father if Olga was also swimming in the gala. My father, who normally took every detail in at any function, had not noticed me floundering in the pool nor my mother wading toward me, clothes billowing in the water.

The worst part was when they got me to the edge of the pool and all the rescuers lined up, reaching to pull my dislocated arm that was asking the proverbial question in class. I screamed in pain and then remember resting against a small retaining wall, while my mother supported my arm. She was waiting for the spasm to subside before attempting a reduction, but before I knew it an orthopaedic surgeon, a big rugby type, a parent of one of the children, arrived. He promptly placed his foot in my armpit and pulled so hard I cried with pain and because of the spasm he struggled and worked up a sweat getting it in. He used the Hippocratic Technique but he had no feel for it. Normally the pain is reduced by some sedation. I heard the joint crunch into place and limped away sniffling with pain and from the near drowning.

Rod Conacher offered to give my mom a prize for life saving at the school prize giving later that year, but she declined. I thought they should give the orthopaedic surgeon a prize for butchery, but they declined.