24 Hours of Trauma

Experience first-hand the day-to-day life of physicians in South Africa's largest hospital, and the trails and tribulations they have to cope with.

As I write this I'm extremely exhausted from studying for my ever present, ever annoying examinations. However, during one of my 56 breaks throughout the day I managed to find time to look at some interesting medical videos.

This one is actually a series of videos that cover different specialists and the days (and nights) they spend working in Bara hospital, South Africa's largest hospital. It's a real treat to see how medicine is practiced in other countries, but more importantly it's a huge wake up call to how good we have it in the west.

In this video, you get to follow the emergency department staff for a 24-hour shift.

The amount of problems they have to deal with are astonishing: power outages, no beds, no ventilators, a large portion of HIV-positive patients.

I highly recommend watching the other videos in the series. They detail the lives of many other specialties, all of which are amazing to watch.