About

I am Dr Basil Stathoulis — orthopaedic surgeon, Greek South African, and writer based in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. For over a decade this blog has been where I process the world: the operating theatre and the long ward corridors, nurses who carry impossible loads with grace, the mountains and trails I walk to clear my head, the chess boards I linger over, the countries I have explored, and the memory of my father Peter Stathoulis — community leader, orator, and the person who taught me that words matter.

My writing moves between the clinical and the contemplative. I write Letters to Nurses because someone should. I keep a record of my travels because my father told me travel is the best education. I curate his speeches and archives because his voice deserves to outlast him. I write about chess because it teaches patience. And occasionally I write poems because some things resist prose.

I trained in medicine at WITS University and then specialised at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. I have practised orthopaedic surgery for many years. I am also the founder of Art of Healers — a platform dedicated to empowering healthcare professionals through creative expression. My photography can be found at www.basilARTinc.com. This blog — basilBLOGinc — is the narrative that lives.

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— Art of Healers —

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— What to Read —

If you are new here, start with these collections:

• Letters to Nurses — open letters from a surgeon to the nurses he works alongside
• Covid Chronicles — writing from the pandemic years
• Chess — the game, the metaphor, the patience it teaches
• Peter Stathoulis — speeches and memories of my father
• Travels — dispatches from the road

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New writing, occasionally. No noise.