Daily Bread: What a junior doctor ate one day last week

Matthew Barber
Saturday 23 April 1994 23:02 BST
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I HAD a bowl of Shreddies and Grape Nuts in the morning, and a glass of milk. I'm the only doctor I know who doesn't live on coffee. I was at the hospital by 8.15, and spent the morning assisting in the operating theatre. At 12.30 I had lunch in the doctors' room off the ward. I had a can of Irn Bru, an apple, and some sandwiches I'd made in the morning. I use Safeway's granary bread and peanut butter. I get through so much peanut butter that I have to buy it in 3kg tubs. While I ate lunch I wrote up some overhead projector acetates for a case presentation I was making afterwards to some staff and students. In the afternoon I was in the frac

ture clinic, where we see kids with broken limbs. Then at five o'clock I was in casualty. As usual, that was so busy that I couldn't escape for something to eat until about 11 at night. Things quieten down about that time. I phoned out for a deep pan, hot 'n' spicy pizza and ate it in the room next to casualty. Patients' families often leave chocolates for us, so later on I had some of those. Before bed last night I had a can of Citrus Spring and some chocolate cake. I'm not sure where the cake came from. One of the nurses made it out of left-over Easter eggs, someone said. Bed at 2.30 and, thank

fully, I wasn't disturbed

until 7.20 in the morning. I went to the hospital canteen and had a bowl of Fruit 'n' Fibre, which was ghastly, tasteless stuff. Then it was back to the operating theatre.

(Photograph omitted)

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