Literature review part ?? (how many of these things have i read now) + lady bits en francais

well friends,

after a few weeks of reading some proper books i felt i couldn't leave you any longer without another review of some fantastic french literature.

This week i put myself through the amusingly titled "medecin et don juan" (rhyming, nice) which translates basically as "doctor and man-whore" (much better than the actual english title of "the play-boy doctors surprise proposal")

Our heroine is an irish ginge obstetrician called Caitlin and our hero is the dazzlingly be-muscled Andrew - a paediatrician. Already we are learning - fellow medics, pick your careers wisely - babies = sexy, old people = not so sexy.

Caitlin has moved from ireland to australia (lesson 2: australia = sexy, ireland = not so sexy) to be near her breast cancer-bestricken sister and there has to get immediately rescued from the water by the family's usefully beefy friend Andrew.

Well it's fair enough i suppose, what girl can resist a man who says her life? Caitlin is casting andrew lusty looks even while she's still coughing up the salt water.

There follows much emotive baby related nonsense at the hospital, and i know that i shouldn't bother questioning the medicine in a mills and boon but really, I'm pretty sure (and the oxford handbook agrees with me) that rather than just standing around having passionate discussions about whether to deliver a pre-eclamptic woman they might want to try a bit of methyldopa on her first.

Anyway, Caitlin and Andrew get round to doing the nasty ( no description though god damn it, when am i going to get to learn the french for velvet over steel and other such essential phrases?) and she instantly decides she's in love with him. But then - disaster strikes! It turns out that she's not his type because she'd like to keep working after having kids and he believes a woman's place in in the home, who'd have thought, this being the 21st century and all?

Disaster strikes a second time when it turns out that caitlin is a) pregnant and b) might have breast cancer (i leave it you to decide which is worse).

Now here is where my real beef with this pile of tripe lies, i know everyone has got their own opinion about abortion but i don't read trashy novels like this to have someones pro-life agenda shoved down my throat. When Andrew finds out Caitlin is considering not keeping the baby he claims he "didn't think she was the kind of woman to abort a pregnancy just for sake of personal convenience". I'm surprised the author restrained herself from having Andrew call Caitlin a baby murdering devil bitch. I think finding yourself knocked up by some pre-historic thinking nobhead who you barely know is a good enough reason for a termination as any.

But of course, we're not in the real world and it turns out that Caitlin doesn't have cancer (shame)and falling in love has made Andrew think that maybe she can keep working after they have kids, (i know, how generous of him) so they just go an live happily ever after.

Not a fan, not a fan. still, i've got one more to go and 2 weeks left in France so fingers crossed the next one doesn't annoy me so much or i might have to start reading proper books all the time!

In the meantime i've started obs and gynae, and to be honest, not a fan of that either. I could partly be that the end is in sight now and therefore my enthusiasm (which has never been that high) is at an all time low. I was flabbergasted and horrified to be handed a sheet detailing the 5000 words, 20 reference report i'm supposed to write during my remaining 3 weeks here. Well, I can tell you, and i did tell them, that that is not happening and luckily they were alright about it.

It's somewhat frustrating, after having got to grips with most of the medical abbreviations to be in a new speciality where i suddenly don't know most of them again, and I've been on the high risk pregnancy unit which is just not that interesting although it should be.

I've had one day in outpatients which was a bit scary because i just got thrown into a room to take histories alone but doing the examinations with the doctor was quite good practise. That said - going to a gynaecologist in france - traumatic! The poor women are made to get completely starkers, have their breasts and "downstairs bits" examined with no sheet or gown or anything AND, the doctor was doing "touches vaginales" with only one hand gloved and no lube. (Now if you're reading this and don't see the horror in that sentence then don't think about it, cherish your ignorance.) and then just as a final insult they have to get weighed whilst completely starkers, i'm suprised more of them don't leave sobbing.

I'm doing surgery next week and will hopefully get to go to labour ward so if you're not too horrified/nauseated/bored by everything i've written today then i'll write about that before i leave Nantes for good (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!)

bisous alex