MW_Secret_files/Erotic Dreams.pdf - Medwords.com.au

PRACTICE TALES 

THE 

EROTIC DREAMS 

OF A 

MENOPAUSAL 

HOUSEWIFE 

AND 

OTHER TALES 

FROM 

MEDICAL PRACTICE 

Dr. Warwick Carter 

1


Preface 

Doctors, particularly those in general practice, are frequently the recipients of 

extraordinarily confidential, private and personal information about their patients, and 

sometimes their patients’ families. They also share experiences with their patients 

which vary from the hilarious to the frightening. 

The information from patients may be very sad, depressing and stressful; but at 

times doctors hear stories that are funny, unusual, tittilating, wanton, salacious, 

sensual, raunchy and just plain erotic. This is a collection of such stories, all true, 

covering thirty years of medical practice, that will both educate and entertain. 

This book shows the enormous variety of attitudes of a wide variety of people, in 

different places and cultures to illness, disease, privacy, sex and the medical 

consultation in general. For very obvious reasons, the names of my patients must 

remain totally anonymous. 

I trust you will savour and enjoy this feast of lively tales. 

Warwick Carter 

2


Contents 

The Eurasian beauty 

The Reubens nude 

Initiation 

Rings and ribbons 

Extra-sensory perception 

Fall astride 

A wayward device 

From the outback 

Home delivery 

The naked lady 

Missed murder? 

Gymnastic fracture 

Breast popping 

Home visits 

Totem pole 

What blouse? 

Wooden ball 

Self portrait 

Permanent markings 

Three balls 

Abduction 

Beware of glass 

Educational video 

Anti-climax 

German sausage 

Ambulance ride 

Doctor’s bag 

Split asunder 

The secretary factor 

The ABBA fan 

Size & frequency 

Vasectomy revenge 

F...ing good 

3


Remote control 

What wheels? 

The tattoed sandwich 

Father’s day 

Living nightmare 

Phone fad 

Control freak 

After life 

Cuckold 

Practice pet 

Chastity lock 

Runaway 

Repairman 

Oedipus complex 

Degradation 

The erotic dreams of a menopausal housewife. 

4


The Eurasian Beauty 

Early in my medical career, my wife worked as a physiotherapist in the same 

hospital as myself, and we lived in a hospital cottage that backed onto an old house 

which had been converted into the psychiatric ward. 

We got to know many of the long term psychiatric patients quite well and chatted 

to them over the back fence. At times we found them wandering down the lane 

beside the cottage, and redirected them back to where they had come from. 

As we were in the tropical North of Australia, light clothing was common, but in 

this particular story, it was taken to the extreme. 

The male orthopaedic ward had a six bed section that was devoted to the bikies 

who had exited in an inappropriate manner from their machines, and had fractured 

their femur (thigh bone). Treatment of this serious, but common bike riders’ fracture 

involved three or four months in hospital with the leg suspended in traction 

apparatus. A very frustrating experience for an otherwise healthy and virile young 

male. 

M. was a young, very attractive Eurasian woman, who did credit to the best 

attributes of both her races in a physical sense, but her personality had become 

rather scrambled, and she spent long periods in the psychiatric ward as a result. 

One hot summers day, M. decided to stroll across from the psychiatric ward to the 

main hospital, and as the exercise made her even warmer, she gradually discarded her 

clothing as she went. 

My wife was working in the bikie’s section of the orthopaedic ward when M casually 

walked in - absolutely naked. 

The reaction of the patients was awesome. They had been strung up like chickens 

for weeks or months on end with minimal female company, and none of their base 

desires had been fulfilled for some considerable time. The twisting, turning, leaning 

and other contortions undertaken to obtain a better view of the bronzed apparition 

that had entered their closed world caused considerable pain in the fractured bones, 

and probably put back their recovery by some time, but they all felt it was well worth 

the effort. 

My wife knew exactly who M was, and where she had come from, and M. knew her. 

The offer from a doctor of a white coat to cover her nakedness was firmly refused by 

M, but she happily took my wife’s hand, and the physiotherapist in her hospital 

uniform, and the bare beauty walked hand in hand out of the orthopaedic ward, 

through the main corridor of the hospital, past the outpatients waiting area, into the 

street, up the lane and into the psychiatric ward. 

Wherever they walked silence descended, not even a wolf whistle was heard. Every 

eye within a hundred metres was turned towards them, and the only sound heard was 

the spluttering as a significant number of flies flew into the wide open mouths of the 

watchers. The moment they were out of sight, an excited babble of querying voices 

5


could be heard - the hospital staff soon learnt the story, but many a patient and 

visitor is still wondering was it an apparition or was she real? 

6


The Reubens Nude 

Acting as a locum, filling in for another doctor while he is away, is a common way 

for a young doctor to learn general practice, and earn quite good money. In most 

cases, you are only working in a practice for a week or two before moving on to the 

next job, and so there is no continuity of care for patients, and the faces and names 

of patients are meaningless to the locum. 

I had been working for a few weeks in a large eight doctor practice when I was 

informed that Miss. E had phoned and asked for me in person to do a home visit. It is 

most unusual for a locum to be specifically requested by a patient, but on receiving 

her file from the practice manager, I noted that I had seen her twice for minor 

problems over the last couple of weeks, but I still could not recall her. I thought 

nothing more about it until I arrived at her home a few hours later. 

The front door of the two story house was open, so I knocked and called out. 

"Is that you doctor Wickham?" was heard faintly from upstairs, and on shouting 

confirmation of my identity, faint instructions to come upstairs to the bedroom were 

heard. 

I made my way as ordered, and on entering her boudoir, found Miss E. to be a 

young, large, rather obese woman. She was tucked up in bed, with the covers drawn 

up under her chin. 

Turning on my best bedside manner, I placed my bag beside her bed, and my 

backside on the edge of the bed as I asked her what was wrong. 

"Doctor, you're the problem" was all I heard as the bedclothes were swept back, I 

was knocked to the floor, and eighty kilograms of naked female flesh landed on top 

of me. 

As this was rather unexpected, it took me a few seconds to react, by which time I 

found that Miss E., whose rotund appearance was straight from a Reuben's painting, 

was astride me and doing her best to divest me of my strides. 

The situation was more than a little difficult to deal with, as she weighed a bit 

more than me, had the advantage of the high ground and familiar territory, and had 

obviously planned her moves carefully in advance. 

With less than gentlemanly courtesy, I managed to slither free, recover my partly 

removed clothing, and with remarkably little dignity, grabbed my bag and waistband, 

and ran. 

Anyone observing the house would have been amazed to hear cries of anguish 

issuing from the upstairs bedroom, and from a dishevelled young man who was 

running hunched over from the front door of the house to his car. The lady's cries 

were of frustration, the young doctor's were of fear, initially of what further traps 

may befall him, and subsequently of how the disciplinary committee of the medical 

board would construe his actions if a complaint were laid by the young lady about the 

quality of service provided by her general practitioner. 

7


The situation was not helped by the gales of riotous mirth that resulted when I 

related my fearsome tale to the practice staff upon my still breathless return to the 

surgery. 

I still don't know what was medically wrong with her to require a home visit. 

Rampant nymphomania was one possibility that crossed my mind. 

8


Initiation 

Young doctors, in their early years after graduation, tend to wander around the 

world, and for a year I worked in a primitive part of southern Africa. 

In this area, the vast majority of the inhabitants were subsistence farmers, there 

was minimal medical care available (three hospitals and twelve doctors for four million 

people) and a third of all children died before five years of age. 

All cultures have their rite of passage for girls and boys to woman and manhood. 

Jews have their Bar Mitzvah, for the modern Australian it is obtaining a driver’s 

licence, but for the young men in Africa it was circumcision. 

Once a year, at the auspicious time in each area, the medicine man would gather 

together those boys between 15 and 17 years of age who were believed to be 

mature enough to undergo their initiation into adult life. The evening started with one 

hell of a party, where copious quantities of maize beer were consumed. Although the 

alcoholic content of this thick porridge like beer was low, the quantity consumed 

made up for this deficiency, so that by the time the moon was high, so were the 

participants, including the witch doctor. 

In a strictly males only ceremony, to the beating of drums, stamping of feet and 

shouting of their seniors, the boys were bought forward. They knelt in front of a tree 

stump, and with one thumb and finger the witch doctor grasped the foreskin of the 

boys penis, and pulled it across the top of the stump so that the skin of the penis 

was stretched tight. With a single swift motion, the witch doctor bought down the 

machete he held in the other hand and cut off the foreskin - an effective, quick 

circumcision. 

Unfortunately, the witch doctor had sometimes had his judgment blurred by the 

excessive intake of beer, and a bit more than just the foreskin was cut off. In these 

circumstances, the western doctors were expected to do their best to repair the 

mutilated penis. Strangely, I never came across a witch doctor with a cut left thumb! 

In normal circumstances, as soon as the circumcision had been performed, the 

penis was heavily coated with white clay and ash, and then the rest of the boy’s 

(man’s) naked body was covered with the same materials. He was then sent 

unclothed out into the bush to live alone, fend for himself, and survive for a full 

month. When these new men returned, the young women of the tribe were eagerly 

waiting for them. 

The young women (any girl who had started menstruating was immediately 

considered a woman) had to demonstrate their fertility before marrying. The 

returning men, with their healed penises, had a great time trying the different young 

ladies of the village for a few months, until the signs of pregnancy became obvious in 

them. The woman then nominated which of the young men who had slept with her 

she believed to be the father, and amidst great celebrations over their joint 

fecundity, a marriage ceremony took place. 

9


The men kept only one wife, but it was difficult to stop old habits, so continued 

extra marital relationships with old girl friends were more the norm than the 

exception, leading to the rapid spread of venereal disease, its subsequent infertility, 

and now even more sadly, the invariably fatal disease of AIDS. 

10


Rings and Ribbons 

I had known T. for many years, looking after her through her childhood and 

teenage years. She was now in her early twenties, and was going through an 

alternate life style stage. She had become an urban hippy, and she dressed in loose 

caftans, had long flowing hair, wore no makeup and lived with a group of like minded 

people in an old house. 

She presented to the surgery because she was very concerned about her heart. 

For no apparent reason it would start racing, and the rapid heart rate would last 

anything from a few seconds to a quarter of an hour before stopping. This would 

happen every few days, and she didn’t like her body doing such strange things. 

She denied any use of illegal drugs or alcohol, and when I examined her, the blood 

pressure and pulse were normal. I suspected that she had paroxysmal atrial 

tachycardia (PAT). 

Paroxysmal means occurring suddenly and irregularly for no apparent reason. Atrial 

refers to the atrium, which is the small upper chamber of the heart, and which 

regulates the rate at which the heart beats. Tachycardia means "rapid heart" in Latin, 

and indicates that the heart is beating far faster than it should. 

Paroxysmal atrial tachycardia is therefore a sudden rapid beating of the heart, 

which starts in the atrium. The diagnosis can be confirmed by performing an 

electrocardiogram (ECG) while an attack is present, but this is often difficult to 

arrange. 

PAT is relatively common in women, may be triggered by hormonal, emotional or 

other factors, and is not harmful. Most attacks last only a few minutes, and cause 

minimal discomfort to the victim. The main problem is often the anxiety caused, as 

many patients believe that they are having, or about to have, a heart attack. 

If the attacks last for longer periods, or occur very frequently, medication can be 

given to prevent them. The need for long term treatment depends on the severity 

and frequency of attacks. 

I started to reassure her that PAT was the most likely explanation for her problem, 

but suggested that I should have a listen to her heart just to make sure it was 

behaving properly. 

She was wearing a loose caftan, tied at the waist with a woven rope belt, and the 

broad neck was held on her shoulders by lacing at the front. She promptly undid the 

lacing, and let the top of the caftan fall about her waist. 

En route to examining her heart, my stethoscope wavered slightly from its direct 

course to the appropriate area immediately below her left breast. It was impossible 

not to note her breasts, or more precisely, the nipples. 

Each nipple was pierced from side to side, and through the hole was looped a one 

centimetre diameter gold ring. This in itself was extraordinarily unusual, but hanging 

from each ring was a 15 centimetre long pink ribbon. 

11


I brushed aside the left side pink ribbon and listened to her heart. Shakily I 

reassured her that all was well, she had PAT, and treatment was only required if the 

problem worsened. Happy that her body was not letting her down too badly, she left 

the surgery. 

Neither of us made any reference to the rings and ribbons. 

12


Extra-Sensory Perception 

Sarah and Peter were a happily married couple living in the suburbs. As far as Sarah 

was concerned, they did not have a care in the world. Money was a bit tight, but they 

were young and could steadily work their way up into a better position. She had a job 

in the city 15 km. away, while he worked from his car as a salesman. 

On the morning in question, Sarah left for work by train as usual, but shortly after 

arriving at work she had this uneasy feeling that something was wrong with Peter. 

She phoned home, and there was no answer, and none should have been expected, as 

by now he would have been out on his rounds. 

She still had this deep feeling that something was wrong, and despite the 

inconvenience, she left work, caught the train, walked the kilometre from the station 

to her home, and then found why she had been feeling so anxious all morning. 

I first heard about the situation when my receptionist put through a panic stricken 

call from Sarah. She had found Peter in the car, in the garage, the engine was running 

and a vacuum cleaner hose led from the exhaust to a crack in the car rear window. 

The car was otherwise sealed. She had called an ambulance, and stopped the car 

engine. What else should she do? 

It was only a few hundred metres from the surgery to her home and I made it there 

as fast as possible. Sarah had not been strong enough to drag Peter out of the car, 

but had opened all the windows. 

Together we dragged him onto the front lawn, and I gave him oxygen from the 

small cylinder I had grabbed as I ran from the surgery. He was bright pink, a 

characteristic of patients with carbon monoxide poisoning, but still breathing, and 

soon came around, just as the ambulance arrived. 

Still confused, he was unable to explain why he had taken such drastic action, and 

was soon on his way to hospital. 

His life had been saved by an incomprehensible intuition possessed by his wife, and 

because the hose from the exhaust to the car had melted at the point where it had 

been forced over the exhaust pipe, and had detached. Even so, in a relatively short 

time, the fumes filling the closed garage would have completed his intended suicide. 

On a follow up visit a couple of days later, he still could not explain his actions, 

except to say that he felt he was in a dead end job and his wife was succeeding more 

than he was. He was very contrite, and vowed never to try such a thing again, 

particularly as he now knew that his wife would soon be aware of any danger he was 

in, and rapidly intervene! 

13


Fall Astride 

She was a tall, angular woman in her early thirties, who dressed impeccably. I was a 

young doctor doing casual locums on the southern outskirts of London. and was in 

this particular practice for one day only, replacing a doctor who was ill. 

Her card was a blank, and had an address from another city. When told by the 

receptionist that she had to see a locum, she was totally unperturbed, and seemed 

almost happy. 

She came straight to the point - everything she said was to be totally confidential, 

as she had a very embarrassing problem. I assured her that medical ethics would 

prevent me from ever revealing (in a way that could identify her anyway) anything 

that she told me. 

Then she asked me if I was broadminded, as she had an extremely embarrassing 

problem. Again I assured her that there was no problem. I was rarely flustered by 

anything I was told or shown. 

With this introduction, I expected her problem to be a genital one, and immediately 

she started to relate her tale, I knew what to expect - or I thought I knew! 

She had been cycling, hit a pot hole, and fallen astride the cross bar of her bike. 

This is a relatively common problem, but can result in some very painful and 

distressing injuries to that most private part of our bodies. Adopting my most 

assuring tone, I ushered her to the examination couch, and asked her to expose the 

affected area. 

She was extraordinarily reluctant, and kept wanting reassurances that I would not 

be shocked, and would keep her problem confidential. 

I oozed reassurance, and finally was able to gaze upon the area between her legs. 

As expected there was a large, black, swollen and grazed bruise in the area - an 

obviously painful injury. 

After the first few seconds of seeing what I expected, I suddenly realised that I 

was not seeing what I expected. The bruise was there alright, but there was nothing 

else. No vulva, no vagina, no female organs of any sort! 

Despite all her warnings, my face obviously displayed my surprise as I stooped to 

examine the area more closely. 

“I had it cut off” she said, “and with the bruise, I can’t pee any more”. 

The scar had healed well, but she (he) had been operated upon some years earlier. 

Sex change operations are sometimes performed in two stages. The first is to 

remove the penis and testes, the second is to construct an artificial vagina. She/he 

had undergone the first part of the operation only, and had not proceeded with part 

two. Passing urine was normally through a small slit in the skin, but this was the area 

now swollen with the bruise. 

My composure returned, and a solution to her/his rather unusual problem had to 

be found. 

14


English doctors are not renown for the extent of equipment in their surgeries, but 

with the order written on a piece of paper, my patient went to a nearby surgical 

supply company and returned an hour later with a small bore catheter. 

With only slight difficulty, this was inserted through the urinary slit and into the 

bladder. It was to be left in position for a few days until the swelling subsided, and 

she/he could unplug the end to drain the bladder as comfort dictated. 

She/he was delighted with the result of a rather unusual consultation. 

15


A Wayward Device 

The desires and expectations of different people with regard to sex vary 

enormously from one person to another. What one person considers quite normal, 

another will consider bizzarre. Anal sex and self stimulation are such activities, and 

they not limited to those who are homosexual. 

A wide variety of apparatus comes under the title of “marital aids”, and all are 

readily available at shops in certain less salubrious parts of the city, or by mail order. 

Mr.O. arrived at the casualty department of a major city hospital looking rather 

sheepish. He felt perfectly well, and had no specific complaints, but needed to talk to 

a senior doctor urgently and privately. He ended up with me. Slowly his story 

unfolded. 

He had ordered by mail a device that was normally used to stimulate the female of 

the species. The deluxe model dildo (artificial penis) that arrived was equipped inside 

with batteries and a small motor to make it vibrate when a switch on the end was 

activated. The plastic device was covered in bumps and ridges to give added 

stimulation to its user. 

Mr.O. had intended this to be a surprise for his wife, but decided to try it on 

himself first. This was a serious mistake. 

Three days earlier he had inserted the dildo into his anus. Unfortunately, the plastic 

on the base of the device was smooth, and his fingers became sweaty and slippery. 

He lost his grip, the device slipped, and suddenly disappeared inside. 

He had immediately gone to the toilet, and had strained for ages to push it out, 

but the vibrations from the motor, and the bumps and ridges on the outside of the 

apparatus had the opposite effect. The dildo steadily moved further into his bowel. 

Several hours later he had been able to feel, with his hand on his belly, the device 

vibrating away in his gut. He had made another mistake in using very powerful long 

life batteries. By the time they had died, the dildo was beyond retrieval. 

He had now been unable to pass a motion for two days, and understandably, was 

becoming very concerned. 

An x-ray with a very discrete radiographer was arrranged, and the device was seen 

high up in the left side of the abdomen, just below the ribs, at a point where the 

large bowel makes a sharp turn. Here it was stuck. 

At the time of this incident, the modern extra thin and flexible colonoscopes were 

not available, and the greatest distance that normal examination of the lower gut 

could proceed with the rigid colonoscope inserted through the anus was about 30cm. 

Mr.O’s dildo was way beyond this. 

A major operation was necessary to open his belly and gut to remove the device. 

The morning after the operation, at which I had assisted, I went to his bed, and 

while he watched, carefully placed a plain brown parcel in his bed side locker. It 

16


contained the retrieved dildo, with fresh batteries, and strict instructions to use it 

solely in the aperture it was designed to enter, and no other. 

17


From the Outback 

“I’m her aunt doctor, she’s been sent down to stay with me from out west. Will 

you check her over for me”. With this, the middle aged woman pushed a pretty little 

fourteen year old girl into my surgery, shut the door and left us alone. 

She sat down at my direction, hung her head shyly and said nothing. I asked her if 

she had any problems, and she said that her mum had sent her down from the 

country to stay with her aunt in the city because she was getting too fat. She had 

tried dieting, and although she starved herself, she kept putting on weight. From 

where she sat, her loose smock bulged, and I had a sinking suspicion that I knew why 

she was continuing to expand. 

Lying on the examination couch, the diagnosis was obvious, she was about seven 

months pregnant. 

Gently I asked her about her boyfriend. She denied that she had one. 

I told her that she was not fat from overeating, but from pregnancy, and she must 

have had sex with someone to be in this state. 

Tears flooded out of her eyes, and the words rushed out as she kept crying that 

she couldn’t be pregnant, as she hadn’t let him kiss her, and she knew, because her 

mother had told her, that if she never let a boy kiss her, she wouldn’t get into 

trouble, and wouldn’t get pregnant. 

I asked what he did do to her, and while choking back the tears, she explained how 

when they were bored, because there was nothing to do in their tiny town, he would 

sometimes put his thing inside her. It felt good, and it helped pass the time - but she 

never let him kiss her. 

As gently as I could, and slowly over half an hour, I explained the facts of life in 

more detail to her. She gradually understood her situation, but at the end of our 

discussion, she still said that she couldn’t be pregnant. 

I had gone through the whole process from conception to labour and delivery. The 

bulging belly was obvious, and I had even used an ultrasound machine to let her hear 

the baby’s heart beat. At one stage she had seemed quite excited about having a 

baby of her own, but the tears now came flooding back as she desperately clung to 

an unreasonable denial. 

Puzzled, I asked her why she couldn’t accept her pregnancy. 

She explained that it was impossible, as her fifteen year old partner was her 

brother. 

Two months later, after staying in the city with a very helpful and understanding 

aunt, she had (very luckily) a perfectly normal little girl. In due course, the daughter 

will hopefully get a far better sex education than her mother. 

18


Home Delivery 

It was 7am as I walked into the surgery and turned off the answering machine. 

Thirty seconds later, the phone rang. 

“She’s having it in the bed. Come quickly.” 

The panic in the male voice on the phone was obvious. 

“Who are you, and what’s happening”. 

“Its Mr.W., and she’s having the baby - now!” 

The name was very familiar to me. I confined thirty or so of my lady patients every 

year in a nearby cottage hospital. One of my patients was obviously coming a bit 

earlier and faster than expected. 

I had undertaken home delivery of babies on a regular basis in the United Kingdom 

some years before, but there they had flying squads who could come to your 

assistance if something went wrong. In Australia there was no such service - you 

were it! 

Delivering a baby is a very natural and normal process, that women have been 

carrying out with minimal assistance for hundreds of thousands of years. 

Unfortunately, every now and then, when you least expected it, things went wrong. 

There is nothing more frightening for a doctor than to deliver a normal baby, and 

then suddenly have the mother collapse with a massive bleed. In a hospital, 

resuscitation is possible, in the home situation, death was more likely. 

From the babies point of view, there were innumerable potential problems, varying 

from strangulation with a cord around the neck, to a brain haemorrhage from a too 

rapid delivery. 

Hoping for the best, I grabbed the “panic bag” off the shelf in the treatment room, 

ran out of the surgery, and rapidly drove the short distance to the W. residence. The 

eldest child was waiting at the front door for me. 

Even as I trotted through the entry hall, the reassuring sound of a crying baby was 

heard. I entered the bedroom. 

Mrs.W. was lying back in the centre of a king size bed, and seemed to be fine. The 

baby, a pink little boy with the cord still attached to the mother, was lying on a blood 

stained towel between her legs, screaming his head off. Mr.W. was standing beside 

the bed. looking both worried about the situation, and relieved at my arrival. Their 

three year old daughter looked on in wonder. 

It was time for the doctor to bring order to chaos, be reassuring, take charge of 

the situation, and exude an air of confidence. Adjusting my suit coat, I walked calmly 

into the room, and around to the side of the bed. Turning on my bedside charm to 

maximum, I started to reassure Mrs.W. that everything would be fine. Then I sat down 

on the king size bed. 

It was a king size water bed. 

19


I had sat far enough into this huge bed to completely miss the edge board with my 

backside. I sat further and further down, completely losing my balance, and rolled 

rather ungracefully into the centre of the bed to join the new baby between mothers 

legs. The effect was anything but the one I had desired. 

Mr.W. didn’t know whether to laugh or apologise, so he just choked quietly, while 

waiting for my next trick. Mrs.W. started laughing hysterically. Whether this was 

because she really saw the funny side of the situation, or because she was terrified 

by her clown of a doctor, I never determined. 

Extracting myself with dignity was impossible. I floundered around, until finally I 

gained the edge, and struggled to my feet. 

Mrs.W. was still in the centre of this vast bed with her new baby, and was virtually 

unreachable if propriety was to be observed. 

The solution came in a flash, the sheet was untucked, firmly grasped at one side, 

and Mrs.W., baby, towel and mess were all hauled into reach at the side of the bed. 

Some semblance of normality returned as I cut the cord, wrapped the baby in a 

blanket, and passed it to Mr.W. for safe keeping. Now for the placenta (afterbirth). 

This is normally delivered by giving an injection of drugs to contract the uterus, 

which then pushes out the placenta. I had no such drugs, which meant I had to 

rhythmically squeeze the uterus from above through the skin and muscle of the belly, 

while pulling on the cord from below. The rapid result of these activities that a swell 

arose in the water bed, and Mrs.W. rocked backwards and forwards past me, while 

both of us became steadily greener and more nauseated by the minute. 

Almost at the point of serious sea sickness for both doctor and patient, the 

placenta issued forth onto the newspapers Mr.W. had been asked to obtain, and calm 

returned. 

Mrs.W. had done what millions of women had done before her, deliver a normal 

baby. 

20


The Naked Lady 

Mr.B is not the healthiest or strongest of men. He has suffered two heart attacks, 

undergone coronary artery bypass graft surgery, suffers from congestive cardiac 

failure, is overweight and occasionally develops angina. He lives alone in a small flat. 

One morning he noted the arrival of the mailman, and headed down to collect his 

letters. Meeting an elderly neighbour at the letterbox, he chatted for ten minutes or 

so before returning to his flat, where he proceeded to make himself a cup of tea. 

Just as he sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy his cuppa, he heard a noise from 

the bedroom, so arose to investigate. Lying on his bed was a young, nubile, naked 

woman. 

He retreated to the kitchen and thought carefully. The doctor hadn’t changed his 

medication in the past week, he wasn’t suffering from angina, he felt completely 

normal and therefore he didn’t think he was hallucinating. 

Mr. B. returned to the bedroom. She was still there. 

Gently, he rolled her over on to her back. She was quite limp, and her head rolled 

to the side. Saliva drooled from her mouth. He quite correctly decided that she was 

not at all well. 

Having little experience in dealing with naked ladies, he headed up the corridor to 

his elderly neighbour’s flat. Trying to convince her that he had a naked woman on his 

bed was not easy, but after some persuasion, she accompanied him back to his flat 

and into the bedroom. There was no one there, not even a fully dressed woman! 

Mr. B’s neighbour chided him for teasing her, and returned to her flat. Mr. B sat 

down at the kitchen table again, very confused. Then he heard another noise from 

the bathroom. 

Kneeling in front of the pedestal, vomiting her heart out into the bowl, was Mr. B’s 

naked lady. 

Once again he approached his neighbour. With even greater difficulty, he 

persuaded her to return again to his flat. There was no naked lady in the bathroom, 

but they found her back in the bedroom. 

After a brief examination, the neighbour decided that there was nothing she could 

do, so common sense prevailed, and the ambulance was called. 

While awaiting the arrival of the transport, they decided that some dignity must be 

maintained, and so between them, Mr. B and his neighbour attempted to manoeuvre 

their naked lady into one of Mr. B’s dressing gowns. This stimulation awoke the young 

lady, and with sudden strength and agility, she eluded her helpers, and fled from the 

flat and down the corridor. 

She stumbled on the stairs, enabling her elderly pursuers to catch her, and with the 

help of a younger resident in the block of flats, she was returned to Mr. B’s flat, and 

securely wrapped in one of his dressing gowns. Shortly after, the ambulance took her 

away. 

21


Mr. B sat down at the kitchen table to face a stone cold cup of tea. Fortunately, 

his sympathetic neighbour noted his pale face, blue lips, and the shaky hand clutching 

his chest. The excitement was just a little too much, but two Anginine and a good 

strong hot cup of tea later, he felt much better. 

The next morning a young man knocked on Mr. B’s door, with a neatly folded 

dressing gown over his arm. He thanked Mr. B profusely for looking after his live-in 

girl friend, who had become distraught the previous day and had taken an overdose 

of pills. This had led to her becoming confused and disoriented, but she would be 

recover completely in the next few days. 

Mr. B arrived in my surgery later that day for a check up, and related his story. He 

felt it was quite interesting to have a naked young lady on his bed, but not too often, 

as he didn’t think his heart could stand such a shock more than once every week or 

two! 

22


Missed Murder? 

Many years ago, when I was a young and inexperienced general practitioner just 

starting my own practice, I always eagerly welcomed new patients, and tried my best 

to do everything possible for them. 

During this time, I was visited by a man in his early sixties who had a minor 

problem. During the consultation he mentioned that he was newly married, and had 

just moved into the area with his new wife who was a diabetic. Would I be able to 

look after her adequately? Of course! 

A week later I was called to the home to see the new wife. Two surprises awaited 

me - the home was next door to the largest medical centre in the district and the 

new wife was 92 years old! 

I felt that I couldn’t comment on the age difference, but I did ask why they had 

bypassed the medical centre next door to travel the three kilometres to my surgery. 

My ego was further massaged when I was told that my reputation was excellent, and 

they felt that the extra journey was worthwhile for my superior expertise! 

Over the next few weeks I saw them both regularly. She had the normal heart 

problems of an elderly person, and was on insulin injections for her diabetes. She was 

also suffering from some degree of dementia, and appeared from her jewellery and 

clothing to be quite wealthy. He had been unemployed for some years and was an 

invalid pensioner, but I never did find out how he had gained such a pension. 

One mid-morning I received an urgent phone call from him - he thought she was 

dead. 

A quick trip to the house confirmed his fear. She was stone cold. He had gone in to 

take her morning tea in bed and she hadn’t responded to him. He had been talking to 

her at breakfast a couple of hours earlier, when she had appeared quite well, but had 

said she was tired and had gone back to sleep. Now she was dead, and he was 

literally crying on my shoulder. 

In the rush of coping with an apparently distraught husband, phoning undertakers, 

signing forms and with my inexperience, I didn’t doubt that she had died from natural 

causes until several days later. 

My concern was triggered a week after the funeral when I phoned to give my 

further condolences and offer any necessary support. The phone was disconnected. I 

drove past the house, and it had a “For Sale” sign outside. 

I had a sudden, cold hard feeling in my stomach, returned to the surgery and dug 

out my long neglected forensic pathology text. My fears were confirmed - the stone 

cold corpse that I had examined should not have been cold at all after only two hours 

at the most since death, particularly in Queensland’s summer. The marriage of a 

impecunious man to a wealthy woman thirty years his senior suddenly took on a new 

light, as did his choice of an inexperienced young general practitioner who was over 

eager to please. 

23


I very sheepishly phoned the police and explained that the death certificate might 

just have been slightly inaccurate. Unfortunately, she was not only dead, but 

cremated as well, so my suspicion that she may well have died from an overdose of 

insulin could in no way be proved. 

The police made enquiries, but of a perfunctory nature, as they realised as well as I 

that it would at this late stage be impossible to prove anything. She had changed her 

will on her marriage to favour him, and despite a challenge from the relatives, after a 

mere ten weeks of married bliss, he inherited her fortune and disappeared leaving a 

bitter family and a much wiser general practitioner. 

24


Gymnastic Fracture 

“Satisfaction is the first sign of decay” is an old saying, but when it comes to sex, 

it may be that satisfaction is safe. 

Many couples, particularly younger ones, seem to believe that the “missionary 

position” for sex is extraordinarily boring. They turn to the Karma Sutra, and its more 

modern equivalents - “The Joy of Sex” and “Cleo” - to find more interesting, different 

and gymnastic ways of performing this normally very natural act. In the process, 

some come to grief. 

What sounds both erotic and exotic on the written page, may turn out to be 

difficult, dangerous or physically impossible when attempted in real life, without years 

of practice as a contortionist before hand. 

Mr.A. and his young wife had been steadily working their way through a sex manual 

that described an extraordinarily large number of ways of doing “it” until Mr.A’s wife 

phoned me in great distress one night. 

“I’ve broken his bone”. 

“Which bone?” I naturally queried. 

“His tool bone”. 

“Tool bone?” 

“Yes, you know, the one in his dick.” 

This obviously needed to be investigated. 

A short time later I arrived at their home. Mrs.A. greeted me with relief, hoping 

that I could fix everything instantly. I couldn’t. 

Mr.A. sat crouched in agony on a kitchen chair. He had a blanket over his 

shoulders, but was otherwise naked. His legs were widespread, and between them, 

resting on a small plate, was his penis (tool, dick etc.). It was not a pretty sight. 

Mr. and Mrs.A. had been enjoying a particularly vigorous episode of extraordinarily 

gymnastic sex (the details of which I did not investigate further), when Mr.A. 

experienced a sudden excruciating pain in his penis, and cried out in agony. 

His penis was no longer in one piece, but was bent at right angles in the middle. It 

had been fractured. There is, of course, no bone in the penis, but two long thin 

balloons that are firmly inflated with blood when the penis becomes erect. An 

excessive amount of lateral pressure had been applied to the penis, and these rigid 

balloons had cracked, releasing the high pressure blood into the tissue just under the 

skin of the penis. 

By the time I saw him, the penis was extraordinarily black with bruising, the half 

closest to his body had deflated and was the usual soft texture of a non erect penis, 

but the other half, furthest from his body, was still rigid and erect, as the blood was 

trapped in the remnants of the balloons. He was still in agony. 

Supporting his poor abused organ on a plate may have been practical, but was not 

at all decorous. With difficulty, he moved to the bed, and a bandage placed across 

25


the top of his thighs acted as a sling to rest the penis. Ice packs were then applied to 

bring down the remaining swelling, and reduce the bruising. To top this off, a pain 

killing injection was given, and he was warned to rest. 

Then came the really bad news. No sex for six weeks until the penis had completely 

healed. In fact he should do everything possible to avoid an erection during that time, 

and should apply a cold pack at the first sign of one developing. Once they did start 

sex again, gentle was the word, until they were sure that everything had healed 

adequately. 

The A’s were not happy. The Karma Sutra would have to wait. 

26


Breast Popping 

If you're Twiggy and want to be Dolly Parton - forget it! But if you're a 32A and 

would like to be a 34B, then plastic surgery to increase your bust may interest you. 

Women desiring this operation fall into two broad groups. Those who were born 

with small breasts, and those who have suffered a sagging or shrinkage of the 

breasts after breast feeding, or with age. There are also those who require breast 

reconstruction after its removal for breast cancer. A repositioning of the breast may 

be better than actual enlargement in some women. 

Provided the patient is healthy, will benefit from the procedure, and is willing to 

have the operation there are no other criteria to be met. 

The operation involves a two or three day stay in hospital. Techniques vary from 

one surgeon to another, but normally a small cut is made under each breast, and 

through this a plastic bag of gel (a prosthesis) is inserted to increase the size and 

improve the shape of the breast. 

Recovery is normally at home, and the patient rests for a week to ten days after 

the operation before returning to normal duties. After six weeks the breasts feel and 

look completely natural, and the tiny scar is hidden under the breast fold when the 

woman stands, so that the briefest bikini can be worn. 

Complications are unusual, and are normally those of other types of surgery such 

as bleeding and infection. The most common post-operative problem after increasing 

the breast size is capsule contraction. This occurs months after the procedure and is 

caused by the body laying down too much fibrous tissue around the implant, which 

results in the breast feeling firmer than normal. 

The treatment for this is called "popping" and involves squeezing the breast so 

that the fibrous tissue tears, freeing up the prosthesis and softening the breast. 

While waiting between cases in the surgeon’s room at a major hospital, a nurse 

popped her head around the door, looked around the room, and fixed her eyes on my 

six foot three inch frame. She asked if I could help another surgeon, and naturally I 

went with her to a theatre where a plastic surgeon of my acquaintance was waiting. 

His problem was his size, he was relatively short, and had small delicate hands - 

ideal for a plastic surgeon, but not this particular problem. He had instructed the 

nurse to find the tallest doctor available, and I fitted the bill. 

The patient, lying anaesthetised on the table, had developed the problem of 

fibrous capsule formation around the breast prosthesis that had been inserted a year 

earlier, and her breasts were sitting up on her chest like cricket balls, and were just as 

hard. The plastic surgeon had been attempting to “pop” the hard capsule by 

squeezing the breasts as hard as possible, but a two handed grip is not as effective 

as a one handed one in which the entire breast can be encompassed in the span of 

the hand. He had failed in his endeavours because his hands were too small, thus his 

call for large handed assistance. 

27


I had always thought of my large mitts as a surgical handicap, and this had been 

one of the (many) reasons I had not pursued a career in surgery, but on this 

occasion, to the cheer of the theatre staff, I enveloped one breast and then the 

other in my hands, squeezed hard, and was rewarded by an audible “pop” as the 

capsule ruptured and the breasts became instantly soft. The post procedure 

inspection revealed breasts that flopped naturally on the chest, and until the capsule 

hardened again, would be undetectable from the real thing. 

I was advised by all that my hands and I had a great career ahead in breast 

popping, but I decided that I needed greater variety in my medical career, and 

continued in general practice. 

An attractive bust may improve a woman's self image and esteem, but the 

operation should not be done for the wrong reasons. It will probably not save a dicey 

marriage, men will not start rushing to her door, and her sex life is not suddenly going 

to improve. 

28


Home Visits 

Home visits three or four times a day at $100 a time (probably tax free), minimal 

overheads, and no training except for two overseas trips a year. That’s the life of J., 

a 32 year old university graduate who is fluent in three languages and works in the 

world’s oldest profession. She is a call girl, servicing the sexual desires of clients in 

their home or hotel. 

J. has been a regular patient of mine for twelve years, ever since she started her 

career while still a university student studying social science. She did her thesis on 

prostitution, and decided that the only way to gain an insight to the profession was 

to experience it. She found by doing this, that what she had been performing as an 

enthusiastic amateur was very profitable, and so her business was started. 

Since then, she has graduated as a social worker and continued her studies, but in 

languages, and has studied at a Japanese university, as well as becoming fluent in 

Indonesian and French. 

Every month she arrives at the surgery for a regular check up - vaginal swabs and 

blood tests for venereal disease. Every six months she has a Pap smear. 

She had genital herpes a few years ago, and used medication for six months at a 

time to prevent recurrences, but after about three years, the attacks ceased, and 

she has been free of this career threatening disease for over two years. 

Vaginal thrush (a fungal infection) is another occasional problem, but I keep her 

supplied with the appropriate vaginal cream, and she uses this at the first sign of any 

itch or discharge. 

J. is obsessive with her vaginal health and she douches daily. She used to do this 

after every client, but the vagina dried out excessively, and became irritated, until I 

urged her to reduce the frequency. She does not neglect her general health, 

exercising in a gym several times a week, and sticking to a very healthy diet. 

Her continuing professional education involves her in regular trips abroad. On these 

she visits places such as Ermita in Manila, Patpong Rd. in Bangkok, the Reeperbahn in 

Hamburg and the red light district in East Amsterdam. She has turned a trick in a 

score of countries, and she claims to know every combination and permutation of 

sexual fantasy known to (wo)mankind. 

She makes fascinating off the cuff remarks about the prowess of various races, 

most of which would be unprintable in Penthouse, let alone here. In summary, she is 

favourably inclined towards Australian men of north European extraction, but finds 

those of the Orient a waste of time as far as sexual pleasure is concerned, although 

they are financially rewarding. 

It is these journeys that cause most of J’s problems, and she invariably returns 

with a mixed vaginal infection, and often an accompanying throat infection, that take 

a couple of weeks to settle on the combination of antibiotics and antifungals found 

appropriate after culture results are received. 

29


J. is extraordinarily relaxed about her body. She never wears any underclothes, no 

matter how short the skirt! Normal patients will casually point out a spot on their 

face or arm, but when an attractive young woman walks into the consulting room, 

and with only a passing “Hi doc!”, places one foot on your desk and flicks up her skirt 

to ask about a spot on her pudenda, it can be rather off putting. I have become quite 

used to this, but when a locum encounters her, it can be rather a shock. One elderly 

locum almost had a heart attack as he fell backwards out of his chair! 

No working girl wants to lose potentially productive days because of 

inconveniences such as menstruation. After trying to use the oral contraceptive pill 

constantly, which often resulted in break through bleeds at inconvenient times, J. has 

settled on Depo Provera injections, every three months. These have the advantages 

of stopping her periods, being difficult to forget, and in her case, causing no side 

effects. She has used these shots for seven years now. 

J. is most certainly not your average prostitute. She is intelligent, healthy, 

attractive, not on drugs, well aware of what she is doing, and apparently enjoys her 

work. She has no intention of having children, but does have regular live-in boy 

friends who last for a few months or a year. I have never needed to treat her with 

any anti-anxiety or psychiatric medications, and her other medical problems are the 

run of the mill things experienced by the average woman of her age. 

J. is always appears happy, always pays her accounts in cash from a thick wad, and 

I have enjoyed being her medical advisor and confidant. 

30


Totem Pole 

Over the years, a doctor is in the position to see the private parts of a large 

number of people. Doctors become quite used to this, and treat examining a penis, 

breast or vagina in much the same way as examining more publicly displayed parts of 

the human anatomy, but there are exceptions to every rule. 

In the same way that certain faces remain in one’s memory, so do certain other 

anatomical curiosities. 

Mr.H. was a long distance truck driver in his thirties and unmarried. Every time he 

attended the surgery, there seemed to be a different young woman waiting for him 

outside, and he was proud to boast that he had a choice of girls in every truck stop 

between Cairns and Perth. It was not until one particular consultation that I found out 

why he was so popular. 

The reason was his penis, Mr.H’s was memorable! 

This modern day Cassanova’s activities had finally caught up with him. He had a 

discharge from his penis, it hurt to pass urine, and he wanted it fixed fast, so that his 

sexual gymnastics could continue. On the couch, he produced his organ so that I 

could take a swab and start him on the correct treatment for his venereal disease. 

His penis, on first appearance, reminded me of an Indian totem pole - 

extraordinarily decorated and bumpy. 

The most obvious features were what appeared to be three small black feathers 

that were tied through holes that had been pierced around his foreskin. He called 

these his ticklers, and they were actually lady’s artificial eyelashes that had been tied 

through the holes that he had pierced himself, in order to tickle his ladies’ fancy. 

The next decoration was the very vicious looking, multiply barbed arrow that had 

been tattooed along the length of his penis, and pointed at the business end of this 

organ. 

Finally, his self titled love beads were noted. Under the skin, just behind the head 

of the penis, the shaft was circled by half a dozen small lumps. These, he informed 

me, were pearls, that had been slipped under the skin through a small cut in a series 

of operations that he had performed on himself. If he ever got short of cash, these 

could always been removed to see him out of a tight spot! 

He was extraordinarily proud of his handiwork, and claimed that he had never failed 

to satisfy any woman who had been fortunate enough to have a sexual encounter 

with him. 

Due to his extraordinary ego, and his willingness to boast about his unusual 

attributes, the details of his conquests and the joy they experienced were well known 

at Australia’s truck stops. This explained the endless queue of young women eager 

try out something that was most certainly unique. 

31


What Blouse? 

What at one time, an individual would find totally unacceptable and outrageous, 

under other circumstances may be completely natural. Undertaking office work 

dressed in a bikini would be considered just as peculiar as wearing a business suit on 

the beach. Mrs.G. found herself in just such a situation, progressing from the 

acceptable to the unacceptable in a matter of seconds. 

She was an attractive woman in her early thirties who had come to see me 

regarding numerous moles on her back and chest. She had been examined in the 

cubicle adjacent to my consulting room, where she had naturally removed her blouse 

so that I could examine her back and chest. 

Some of her moles were rather black and suspicious, so I advised her that it would 

be sensible to have a couple of the worst looking ones removed for pathological 

analysis. Then I went back into the consulting room and sat down to make notes in 

her chart. 

She was very concerned about her moles, and followed me back to sit beside my 

desk. Her mother had died from malignant melanoma, and so her concern (as well as 

mine) for her moles were increased ten fold, and a prolonged discussion about what 

should and should not be done followed. 

Eventually I had answered all her questions, an appointment to have the first mole 

removed had been made for the next day, and she was satisfied with everything I had 

told her. I turned to write some more information in her chart. She stood up, and 

most unexpectedly, opened the door and walked out of the consulting room and into 

the waiting room. 

I leapt from my chair and went to the door. 

“Mrs.G., your blouse!” 

Her reply of “What blouse?” was followed by a scream, and a rapid dash back 

through my consulting room, and into the examination cubicle, where she retrieved 

the aforesaid article of clothing. 

After the examination, she had sat in my desk side chair with only a bra on top, a 

completely natural situation as we were talking about, and further examining the 

spots on her chest. This natural situation had become unnatural the instant she 

walked out of the consulting room. 

With her blouse securely in place, but with a bright red face, she begged to be let 

out some other way, as she couldn’t face walking into the waiting room again. 

The fire escape door was opened, and she scurried down the back stairs, to car, 

home and safety, avoiding any further embarrassment. 

There was only one person in the waiting room, a middle aged workman. When he 

was called in for his consultation, he leered at me and looked carefully around for the 

apparition he had glimpsed a minute earlier. He spied the fire exit, laughed, and then 

32


asked if my girl friend had forgotten which door to use, or had the floor show been 

for his entertainment. 

With my face now also several shades more red than usual, I got down to dealing 

with his problem as seriously as possible. 

33


Wooden Ball 

She was a handsome, successful business woman in her early forties. Immaculately 

dressed in a tailored suit, wearing a subtle perfume, a gold broach at her throat, and 

fashionably expensive rings on several fingers, but not the left ring finger. The 

address on the chart was the other side of the city. 

Sitting in the chair by my desk, she was initially a bit flushed and flustered, but 

while I watched, she visibly composed herself. 

“I have a very personal and embarrassing problem for which I require your strictly 

confidential assistance”. 

After assuring her that I would do my best to help her, and emphasising that all 

medical consultations were strictly confidential, she briefly outlined her problem. 

“There is something in my vagina that shouldn’t be there, and I can’t remove it.” 

Further enquiry elicited that what was present was a small wooden ball. It was 

indeed a very personal and embarrassing problem! 

Rather reluctantly, she climbed onto the examination couch and removed the 

innumerable layers of underclothing that well dressed ladies seem to wear. The 

vaginal speculum was inserted, and as she had stated, at the top of the vagina was a 

small, polished, smooth wooden ball. Coming from a small hole in the ball was a tiny 

fragment of frayed string. 

It appeared that the ball was being repeatedly popped into the vagina, and then 

withdrawn by the string, as a form of self stimulation - then the well used string 

broke. 

The ball’s size, shape and position made it impossible to grasp directly with any 

instrument at my disposal, but fortunately I was able to clip a fine artery forceps 

onto the remnant of string, and the speculum, forceps and ball were slowly 

withdrawn together. 

I placed the equipment on a side table. The patient arose, dressed herself, reached 

over and unclipped the forceps from the string, popped the ball in her handbag, and 

now completely under control and self confident again, she walked out with a curt 

“Thank you” as she passed me. 

34


Self Portrait 

When you return to your surgery from lunch, and your staff start giggling the 

moment they see you, then it’s fair warning that something strange is happening. In 

between chuckles, I was told that there was a very special patient waiting on the 

couch in my consulting room. Suspiciously, I went to check. 

The staff were not wrong (they rarely are!). There she was, lying full length along 

the couch, smiling with her head propped up on one hand, and totally naked. She 

looked stunningly beautiful. 

What in fact I saw was a magnificently executed, full length self portrait in oils of 

one of my regular patients, Miss G.. The painting had been propped very artistically 

and appropriately along the examination couch - my staff have style too! 

The face was a very accurate representation of Miss G., but from my recollection, 

the body was rather more lithe and attractive than I remembered from past 

examinations. 

Miss G. had been coming for some months, she always seemed to have some 

excuse to drop into the surgery for one or other of numerous minor complaints. On 

checking her record, I noted that these initially had been a mild sore throat or a 

bruised toe, but more recently, barely detectable breast lumps and insignificant 

gynaecological problems had required more detailed and personal examinations. 

She had confided in me that she was an artist, and trying to establish herself in the 

art world, but I also recalled that she was a lady of relatively poor intellect, and had 

gently queried her psychiatric stability. It may have been a pity that I hadn’t followed 

that hunch further. 

I had evidently expressed interest in art myself, and she had promised to bring in a 

picture to show me - this was it. There was no doubt that she was an excellent artist, 

and this one work of hers would have sold very easily in the right gallery, but my 

staff informed me that Miss G. intended this to be a personal gift from her to me. 

I had fallen into the trap she had set. She was infatuated with me, and I was in the 

extremely awkward situation of trying to return to her a very generous (and 

revealing) gift, while trying to keep both her, and the AMA’s ethics committee, 

happy. Patients’ who believe their initially welcome (but unwanted) loving advances 

have been rejected by their doctor, are notorious for complaining to ethical 

committees, medical boards and complaint units about exaggerated and imagined 

incidents. 

Miss G. was phoned and asked to come to the surgery. With one of my staff 

members present, Miss G’s artistic skill was effusively praised. She was told that her 

accurate representation of the human body was world class, and that she would be 

recognised as a great artist one day. 

Then came the (not so little) white lie - regulations governing the practices of 

doctors were very strict, and only gifts of small value could be accepted. This 

35


painting was obviously worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, and was 

completely outside the limits set down by government (you can get away with 

blaming government for almost anything!). If she wanted to give me some fruit from 

her garden, some home made cakes, or even a bottle of wine, that would be 

marvellous, but the painting would just have to be taken back. 

Reluctantly, but while basking in my praise, she agreed to take the painting home. 

Her visits continued to be regular for a while, but a chaperone always seemed to 

appear during the consultation, or she was directed to the female doctor in the 

practice, until she suddenly stopped coming and, like the painting, disappeared. 

36


Permanent Markings 

There are some people who take a delight in permanently marking their bodies. 

These tattoos may be pictorial, or written messages, and their variety is as great as 

the human imagination. Their placement can also be quite extraordinary, and must 

have been quite painful when applied. 

A very large proportion of those with tattoos wish that they did not have them, 

and doctors who remove tattoos do a roaring trade. It would be appropriate for there 

to be a cooling off period before a tattoo is applied, so that they are not applied 

when the victim is drunk, as a dare, or without thought on the spur of the moment. 

In the last 25 years of practice, I have seen a large number of interesting body 

markings. 

I sometimes see tattoos on older people, who obviously wish that I hadn’t seen 

them, and unfortunately sometimes patients put off coming to see a doctor because 

they can’t avoid showing their markings. One example of this was the sweet little old 

lady who had suffered with a severe vaginal prolapse for years because she was 

ashamed of the beautifully tattooed rose garden she had growing out of the top of 

her (now scanty) pubic hair. 

Then there was the middle aged matron whose tattoo had not kept up with 

inflation. Above her pubic hair (the most common site for erotic tattoos in women) 

was her fee scale with the words “Toll $10” emblazoned in red. 

The younger the woman, the more titillating (or plainly pornographic) become the 

tattoos. One sweet young thing had “This way boys” and an arrow on her lower belly. 

A far more adventurous female (lady was not an appropriate word to use in reference 

to this patient) had her tattoos in a slightly different place, the crease where the top 

of the thigh joins the side of the pubic hair. On one side of her pubic area she had 

marked “Turn me over and”, and on the opposite was “try the other side”. 

Milder versions of lower abdominal tattoos abound, “Love nest” and “Pleasure 

pouch” could almost be described as romantic, but “Turn me on inside” left little to 

the imagination. 

Breasts are another site for tattoos. Nipples that form the centre of a tattooed 

flower are relatively common, as are tiny tattooed flowers on the breast itself. Some 

young women let her desires be known to all - in one case below one nipple was 

“Lick” and the other “Suck”. Yet another woman had one nipple with “Starter button” 

around it while the other one was neglected and bare. 

Tattoos are not, of course, limited to the female of the species, but men tend to 

wear their heart on their sleeve (or upper arm) with exotically dimensioned and 

unclad women adorning their biceps, often in a way that makes the tattoo art 

undulate in a sensuous manner when the biceps are flexed. 

37


One rough, tough truckie unsuccessfully requested that the tetanus needle I was 

about to give him be placed in the anatomically appropriate part of the spread 

legged naked woman on his shoulder. 

The name, or names, of various maidens are also often tattooed on arms, but one 

very brave man had a series of about a dozen names tattooed along the shaft of his 

penis. One wonders what his new loves thought of the idea of being entered by his 

old loves! 

A more imaginative tattoo was that of a large naked woman on a man’s belly, with 

his navel at the spot that her pubic area would normally be seen. Another fellow in a 

similar vein had a voluptuous and naked tattooed maiden kissing each of his nipples. 

Over the years I have encountered many penises with tattoos. Those I recall 

include “Love knob”, “The piercer” (with an appropriate arrow), and one with a 

picture of a machine gun spitting bullets. 

Just try to imagine how some of the tattoos mentioned above will appear when 

the owner is eighty years old, and being looked after by young nurses in an old 

peoples’ home! 

38


Three Balls 

Cancer of the prostate gland is a very common condition in elderly men, but 

relatively uncommon in middle age. Fortunately, the treatment is very successful, and 

a cure can normally be expected. When it does occur in younger men, it is often 

devastating to their sex life, as the treatment will require a combination of surgery 

and hormone treatment that leaves them impotent. 

At eighty years of age, with a similar aged wife, impotence is of no great concern, 

but Mr.G was in his early fifties and had a wife fifteen years younger, and both wished 

the joys of marital bliss to continue for some time to come. 

It was nearly a year since Mr.G had been operated upon for his cancer when he 

came to see me. He was quite distraught that he and his wife were unable to make 

love, and he feared that she may leave him for a younger man. I sent him to a plastic 

surgeon. 

Three months later, Mr.G was back again, this time with his wife. I knew from the 

surgeon’s letter that he had undergone an operation on his penis, but his visit was 

about some other matter. At the end of the consultation I asked him how everything 

was going now that he had fully recovered from the procedure. 

The smiles on the faces of both Mr. G. and his wife were a delight to behold. 

The penis contains two long, thin balloons that inflate with blood under high 

pressure to cause an erection. Mr. G’s operation had involved two pencil shaped 

artificial balloons being placed into either side of his penis to replace the naturally 

occurring ones. A reservoir of fluid, that was the same shape and size as a normal 

testicle, had been placed in his scrotum (sack). 

To give himself an erection, he squeezed on the reservoir to pump fluid into the 

balloons, and the penis very obediently became instantly erect. To deflate, he 

pressed on a valve at the base of the penis, which let the fluid flow out of the penis 

and back into the reservoir. 

The system was working superbly, Mr.G. informed me. He could pump himself up, 

and delight his wife for as long as she liked, without any problems of not being able 

to keep it up for as long as she could take it. Sex had never been better. He could 

not actually ejaculate, but still had the sensation of orgasm, and all the other normal 

pleasurable sensations associated with sex. 

Then Mrs.G. spoke up, and not so coyly pointed out that he could never claim to 

be too tired now. All she had to do was roll over in bed, feel for the appropriate part 

of his anatomy, and pump him up, so that she could have him whenever she desired 

sex. 

Mr.G. was very quick to point out one small problem. Now that he had three balls, 

it was sometimes a bit of a lottery as to which one she squeezed. Provided the 

correct ball was chosen, everything was great, but if in the heat of the moment the 

39


wrong ball was selected, squeezing had quite the opposite effect, and put him out of 

action for quite some time! 

40


Abduction 

Mr. E, an airline pilot, had a most attractive, vivacious and somewhat precocious 

seventeen year old daughter, F., who had fallen head over heels in love with a man in 

his mid-twenties. F. was in the final year of her schooling, and Mr. E. thought that her 

school studies were more important than any man, let alone one whom he disliked 

intensely, and thought was far too old for his precious daughter. As a result, there 

was considerable friction in the home, as F. insisted upon seeing her love, regardless 

of parents, school or study. 

The day school finished, she disappeared. 

Her abrupt departure was reported to police, but initially F’s parents were hopeful 

that she had merely gone to schoolies week, but as time passed, they became more 

and more desperate. 

About six weeks after F’s disappearance, Mr. E. received a phone call in the early 

hours of the morning. It was his daughter, but the call lasted only a few seconds, as 

she was calling long distance and had only one coin. She was at a certain address in 

Melbourne’s St.Kilda, and she begged her father to come and get her, but without 

notifying the police. 

Within minutes, Mr.E. was at the airport, and soon on a dawn flight to Melbourne. 

By the time a taxi had dropped him outside the St.Kilda address, he was in a fury, and 

being an ex-rugby second rower, he was not a small man who could be treated lightly. 

He had been dropped outside one of Melbourne’s notorious brothels, which at the 

time of this tale, were still illegal. At eight o’clock in the morning, brothels are not the 

liveliest of places, but Mr.E. soon changed that! He virtually tore the place apart 

looking for his daughter, but was unable to find her. He left, and despite his 

daughter’s warning, headed for the nearest police station in order to obtain further 

assistance. 

As he stormed down the street, his bedraggled daughter, dressed in only a T shirt 

(and absolutely nothing else) rushed out of a nearby park, where she had spent the 

night waiting for her father to appear. She was extremely frightened, hungry and 

cold. 

F. absolutely refused to go to the Melbourne police, but wanted to get out of the 

city as quickly as possible, so after a quick stop to buy some more clothing, she and 

her father were back on a plane headed home. Their first stop on arrival was my 

surgery, where the story unfolded. 

F. had been so infatuated with her smooth, but slimy boyfriend, that he had 

convinced her to run away with him - to Melbourne. Once there, she had been taken 

to the brothel, were initially he had sex with her, then his friends, and then he left her 

in the hands of even more frightening people, who forced her by threats and fear, to 

work as a prostitute. 

41


She had not left the building since her arrival in Melbourne, until she managed to 

steal some coins from a client’s pocket, and fled through the front door when it was 

momentarily unguarded. 

When I saw her, F. was still shaking with fright and shock. She had been given a 

packet of condoms to use on her clients, but knowing little about such things, few 

had used them. She had not been given any other protection against pregnancy or 

venereal disease. 

Fortunately, she was not pregnant. The terror she was in may well have suspended 

ovulation to protect her in that way. She was not so lucky with regard to venereal 

disease, but her gonorrhoea and chlamydia responded to the appropriate treatment. 

Understandably, she became something of a home body for a while, and although 

the police were told her story, to the best of my knowledge, no one was ever 

charged over the incident. 

42


Beware of Glass 

Teenagers of both sexes are known to experiment sexually, both on themselves 

and with each other (not necessarily to the point of intercourse). It is a natural part 

of growing up and learning about one’s own body, and provided it does not proceed 

too far, may be beneficial to the development of the individual. Unfortunately, this 

self experimentation can sometimes go horribly wrong. 

She was sixteen and lying on the couch in the hospital casualty looking extremely 

uncomfortable. Dressed in a private school uniform, she had her legs drawn up and 

apart, with her skirt tucked in between her legs to preserve modesty. 

With pimples, straggly hair and glasses, she was not the most attractive of young 

women, but one couldn’t help feeling sorry for her as she lay there quietly crying. 

The story of her problem initially came from the teacher who had accompanied her 

in the ambulance from school to the hospital. 

She had been in the toilets, cried out in pain, and stumbled out to the other girls 

present with terrible pains in her lower belly and blood streaming out of her vagina. 

She had been extremely distressed, and the school had not known how to cope with 

what appeared to be a very abnormal type of menstrual period, so an ambulance was 

called, and here she was. 

As it turns out, a woman doctor may have been more appropriate, but I was all 

that was available. Quietly, alone with her in the cubicle, I asked her what had 

happened. 

At first she just kept saying that she couldn’t tell me, but then she realised that if 

she was to get any help, I was her only chance. The story suddenly tumbled out. 

She had found that masturbation was pleasant, and at times, particularly when her 

friends were talking about the boyfriends she could not yet hope to have, she would 

retreat to a private place to stimulate herself. Normally she used just her finger, but 

a science class that morning had given her an idea. 

She had taken a glass test tube from the laboratory, and in the privacy of a toilet 

cubicle during the lunch break, had experimented on herself, using the smooth 

rounded glass tube as a dildo (artificial penis). Everything was great, until the test 

tube broke. 

Originally the test tube had been about fifteen centimetres long, and she had felt 

the outermost five centimetres suddenly disintegrate between her fingers. The rest 

was still inside her. 

As gently as possible, her vagina was examined, but almost any movement caused 

severe pain, and aggravated the steady flow of bright blood. The jagged remnants of 

test tube glass were digging into her vagina. 

A general anaesthetic was arranged, and with great difficulty, the vagina was 

spread open, the razor edged slivers of glass removed, and the lacerated vagina 

repaired. 

43


Fortunately, the vagina, in order to recover from the traumas of childbirth, is one 

of the fastest and best healing parts of the body, and no long term problems would 

result from this science experiment that went extraordinarily wrong. 

44


Educational Video 

Everyone has to do everything for the first time at some stage, and this includes 

doctors. There is the first patient to examine, the first injection to give, the first cut 

to sew up, the first appendicectomy to perform - and of course the first Pap smear 

and first breast examination. 

Medical students can practice interviewing patients by using each other as role 

models, injections are practised on oranges, foam rubber cuts are sewn together, and 

the appendicectomy is done under close supervision with the patient anaesthetised 

and unaware of the student’s presence. Pap smears and breast checks are slightly 

different. 

There is no suitable alternative to the female vagina and breasts, and it is the rare 

patient who would allow a medical student to fumble about with their private parts, 

while a supervising doctor gives instructions. Most patients are even uncomfortable 

about having students watch these procedures. 

As a result of this problem, I was asked by the local medical school to prepare a 

video demonstrating to students how these procedures were performed. As I already 

worked with the media, I decided to educate not only the medical students, but the 

general public as well. 

A major television network agreed to film the entire procedure for both a Pap 

smear and breast examination, but broadcast only those shots that were 

aesthetically (and legally) permissible in a woman’s show in order to promote 

women’s health. 

I now had a doctor (myself) and a television crew, but no female subject. This was 

the difficult part. Previously I had no trouble obtaining patients to be filmed 

demonstrating their leg rash, bumpy joints or chickenpox spots, but having your 

most private parts ogled by medical students, and broadcast nation wide, is not 

something that appeals to your average young woman. 

Emphasising that at no stage would their face be filmed, I tentatively approached a 

few of my more relaxed patients (who have been wary of me ever since), my wife 

(yes, we’re still happily married), my receptionists (way outside their job description), 

and even a couple of female doctors (appealing to their sense of duty was totally 

ineffective). Agencies who looked after models and actresses were next approached - 

some were firmly polite, while others hung up in my ear. 

Time was running out, as the film crew had been booked for a half day the next 

week, when the obvious answer finally came to mind. The classified advertisements 

of the weekend paper provided the phone numbers for a number of escort services, 

and with one phone call I had a young woman who would undertake the task for an 

appropriate fee. 

At the appointed time, she arrived at the surgery, where the film crew were 

already busy setting up their equipment. I took Tessa into the consulting room, and 

45


explained in detail what would be expected of her. She was disappointed that she 

could not show her face, or otherwise advertise her services while on camera, and 

was quite relaxed about the procedure, which compared to the kinky requests from 

her regular clients, was quite routine. 

Tessa was attractive and well dressed, and we walked together into the 

examination room where I introduced her to the film crew of four men. She politely 

shook hands with them, and without further ado, and with remarkable alacrity, 

slipped off every stitch of clothing and hopped onto the couch. 

The producer was quite laid back and just enjoyed the view, the cameraman found 

he just couldn’t focus properly and kept rubbing his eyes, the sound man couldn’t 

hold the microphone steady for some minutes, but the best reaction came from the 

“best boy” (ie: young dogsbody). He was about seventeen, and had obviously never 

seen anything like this outside his wildest dreams. His chin hit his chest, his mouth 

stretched open, his eyes visibly bulged forward, and he became quite short of breath. 

He was useless for the rest of the morning. 

The filming proceeded, with the usual multiple takes and shots to make sure 

everything was perfect. Never were breasts more examined, and Tessa had more Pap 

smears performed in four hours than most women have in several lifetimes, but 

finally all was done. 

We were all tired, hot and sweaty (for various reasons), but Tessa was as cool as a 

cucumber as she rose from the couch, redressed, shook hands all round again, put 

the cheque in her purse and strolled out to her car. The crew retired to the nearest 

pub to recover over a refreshing ale. 

A few weeks later the producer had finished cutting the film into sections for the 

medical students, broadcast to the public, and the station bucks night. 

The University now has an excellent educational video, so that medical students 

can approach their first patients with confidence and less embarrassment all round, 

the women of Australia have received some appropriate health education, and a 

young “best boy” has a day he will never forget. 

46


Anti-Climax 

Some days are designed to be boring in general practice, most are interesting, but 

some involve high drama. This day was very much of the last type. 

Mrs.R. phoned while I had my last patient of the morning with me. Something in her 

tone of voice made the receptionist interrupt the consultation with her phone call. 

“Doctor, I need you to come to my place, now!” 

Again the tone of voice, without any further information, made me say that I would 

be right over. I knew that she had been having some marital problems with her 

temperamental husband, but couldn’t think of any other crises in her life. 

Mrs.R. actually lived across the road from the surgery, so as soon as the 

consultation finished, I grabbed my bag and walked across the street. The front door 

was open, and I called out. 

“Down the end of the hall in the bedroom, doctor”. 

I became uneasy, something wasn’t quite right, but I walked down the hall, and into 

the main bedroom. 

Mrs.R. was sitting on the double bed. Mr.R. was standing in the far corner of the 

room. He had a rifle, and he was pointing it at me. When he told me to sit on the bed 

beside his wife, I didn’t argue. 

It is quite amazing how large the muzzle of a small bore rifle appears to be when it 

is pointing at your head. Mr.R. was ranting and raving about his feckless and 

unfaithful wife, and how she confided in me, so I must be colluding with her. She very 

bravely (but foolishly) answered back with other insults, and there had obviously 

been a good argument in progress before I had arrived. 

I madly tried to remember the details of every crisis counselling lecture I had ever 

heard in years past. Unfortunately, my mind remained quite blank. 

Quietly talking, neither agreeing or disagreeing with him, I slowly stopped the 

arguing between husband and wife. Every time Mrs.R. started to speak I gave her a 

dig in the ribs with my elbow to make her keep quiet. She soon got the message. 

Eventually the conversation was a quiet one, with me sympathising with Mr.R’s 

many problems at home, work and with society generally. He sat on the dressing 

table, and with relief I noted that the rifle was now pointing at my toes rather than 

my head. 

After half an hour or so, I tentatively suggested that Mrs.R. should go and make us 

a cup of tea, as all this talking was thirsty work. Mr.R. didn’t disagree (in fact he said 

nothing), so Mrs.R. slowly walked out of the room - and then rapidly shot out the 

front door and across the road to my surgery. A cup of tea for me and her husband 

was not on her mind. Mr.R. didn’t seem to notice that she hadn’t returned as we 

continued our talk. 

47


Fifteen minutes later (it seemed more like hours), I heard several sirens in the 

distance, that stopped just after they came within ear shot. I hoped they were a sign 

of help on the way. 

Mr.R. was crying now, and the rifle was across his knees. I kept talking in a 

soothing way, gradually changed my position on the bed, and eventually sat on the 

end of the bed so that we faced each other with our knees almost touching. Still I 

kept talking (I’ve no idea what about) in the quietest and most soothing tones that I 

could muster. I needed that cup of tea though, my throat was getting very dry and 

husky. 

Eventually I swung round, sat beside Mr.R. on the dresser, and put my arm around 

his shoulders. I suggested that we go out to the kitchen and make ourselves a cup of 

tea. With some slight urging he agreed, and as we stood, I put my hand around the 

barrel of the rifle, and he let me take it out of his hands. 

With my arm around his shoulders, we walked out to the kitchen, and I sat him at 

the breakfast table while I turned on the kettle. Still holding the rifle in the other 

hand, I clattered some cups and saucers out of a cupboard, then as naturally as 

possible, just walked passed him and out the front door. 

One gun muzzle pointed at my head was enough, now I had half a dozen. The 

police SWAT team had arrived, and I was temporarily their target, as I was carrying a 

rifle. As I raised my hands, someone called “That’s the doctor!” and the police guns 

were lowered. 

I walked over to the nearest flak jacket clad policeman, handed him the rifle, then 

walked back inside to continue my talk with Mr.R. 

He agreed to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and ended up leaving in an 

ambulance rather than a police car. 

I walked back across the road to start my afternoon surgery, but the first half 

dozen patients kept looking at me peculiarly, and a couple asked me why my hands 

were shaking so much. 

No, it wasn’t the booze, just an anti-climax. 

48


German Sausage 

When a man is sexually stimulated, the penis becomes hard and erect. The reason 

for this is that the penis is inflated with blood under high pressure. The veins that 

drain blood away from the penis go into spasm to prevent any blood from leaving it, 

and small sausage-like balloons within the penis are pumped full of blood by the 

arteries supplying the penis, which remain open and do not go into spasm. 

The penis cannnot be made erect by voluntary effort, but only by an extremely 

complex series of physiological actions that occur in response to the correct stimuli. 

The size of the penis does not affect the sexual performance of the man, but folk 

lore (or street law) makes most men believe that the larger the penis, the more of a 

man they are. As a result, techniques that purport to act upon the penis to enlarge 

it, prolong an erection, or allow more frequent erections, are sometimes tried, no 

matter how ridiculous or dangerous these techniques may be. 

Teenagers are notorious for boasting about their prowess in all areas of activity. 

Their supposed sexual conquests, and the huge size of their erect penis are not 

exempt from this boasting. Sometimes a young man’s bluff may be called, and this is 

what happened to D. 

In an attempt to impress his peers, he had made outrageous claims about the size 

of his erection, and now he had to prove his claims. He had heard that a thick rubber 

band applied around the base of the penis with only a mild amount of pressure may 

be sufficient to cause a large erection. This technique works by closing off the low 

pressure veins, and allowing the penis to fill with blood through the high pressure 

arteries. 

Unfortunately, D. took the procedure too far. He used a complex knot to tie a thin, 

braided nylon cord firmly around the base of his penis. This totally cut off the return 

of blood through the veins, and with a mild amount of sexual stimulation, he had a 

very impressive erection. 

As the penis becomes erect, it not only enlarges length wise, but in diameter as 

well, so the cord became buried in the flesh at the base of the penis. Blood continued 

to pump in, but still none could escape. 

After reaching its normal full erect size, D’s penis continued to enlarge, not any 

more in length, but in diameter. It also started to turn a dark blue colour. He had 

impressed his voyeuristic friends, but now he couldn’t untie the buried knot, or even 

get at the cord to cut it. The penis became painful, and then agonising, and was in 

imminent danger of being seriously damaged. 

He staggered into the surgery in a half crouch. The look of anguish on his face had 

him past the other waiting patients and into my presence in a flash. 

Instantly the door closed, he dropped his shorts, and he showed me what looked 

like a large, black German sausage, but was really his penis almost at the point of 

being unsalvageable. 

49


The nylon cord, buried deep in the swollen flesh, was only reached with 

considerable difficulty, and scissors couldn’t get a grip on the slippery, but strong 

fibre. 

Most doctors face a similar problem with finger injuries and rings. The finger may 

become swollen, and the ring may be impossible to remove, threatening the viability 

of the finger in the same way that the cord threatened D’s penis. An instrument that 

is normally used to cut through a ring to save a finger was called upon to save D’s 

manhood. 

The slim metal guard of the ring cutter was slipped under the cord with difficulty, 

then the knife edged wheel was clamped down with the cord between it and the 

guard. The wheel was then rotated with a small handle, and sliced through the cord in 

seconds. 

D’s sigh of instant relief was audible, but it still took an hour in a side room with a 

warm pack on the penis for the organ to subside to the point where it was 

recognisable. 

He was extremely lucky that no permanent damage resulted, and will probably 

regard black German sausages with horror for the rest of his life. 

50


Ambulance Ride 

The call came into the ambulance depot in the coastal city at 10am in the morning. 

A miner had fallen down a shaft at a remote camp 150km. inland. He had been 

rescued, but the other miners were afraid to move him further, and an ambulance 

was needed to transport him out. One was promptly dispatched. 

An hour or so later, the conventional ambulance that had been sent radioed in that 

it had slid off the rough mountain track, and was severely damaged. A replacement 

ambulance and a tow truck were required. This time a four wheel drive ambulance 

was dispatched, which anyone knowing the track, would have known was appropriate 

in the first place. 

In the middle of that afternoon I was phoned by the ambulance depot. The 4WD 

ambulance had reached the injured miner, but he had deteriorated as they were 

bringing him down the mountain. They wanted to be met by a doctor to administer 

emergency treatment. 

A third ambulance, with me aboard, now headed inland along the bitumen at high 

speed. 

I had no real idea of what was wrong with the miner, but I sympathised with the 

ambulance driver cautiously moving down the steep, slippery, twisting mountain 

track. I had explored it a few months earlier in my own Land-Rover and knew it to be 

extremely difficult and treacherous. The ambulance report said that he had multiple 

wounds, was vomiting, and semi-conscious. I kept running over in my mind the 

procedures necessary for the revival of acutely injured patients. 

The steep ranges loomed out of the plain ahead, and we soon had radio contact 

with the other rapidly approaching ambulance. They had reached the foot of the 

range, and were making good time on the flat dirt road across the plain. 

The bitumen petered out, so I told the driver of my ambulance to stop at the side 

of the road and wait for our patient while I prepared my equipment. A drip was set up 

and run through, drugs were drawn up into syringes, and almost immediately we 

could see the cloud of dust approaching in the distance. 

The 4WD drive ambulance pulled to a stop beside us. I was in the back in a flash. 

The patient said “G’day doc”, but I didn’t notice as I slipped in the drip and started 

examining him. The ambulances headed back to the city in convoy. 

My patient seemed to be in remarkably good cheer. He was talking normally, and 

replied to my questions about the accident. He had slid down a thirty metre inclined 

shaft, and (fortunately for him) not a vertical one. 

He asked to be sat up. After examining him carefully, I allowed the back of the 

stretcher to be raised so that he was half sitting, and could see the road rapidly 

disappearing through the back window of the vehicle. He almost sighed with relief to 

be in this position. 

51


My examination had revealed a vast multitude of relatively minor grazes and 

bruises, which looked terrible, and were painful to the patient, but would all heal well 

in due course. He also had a tender, swollen ankle. 

I asked him about his vomiting, belly pains and semi-comatose state. 

Imagine being placed flat on a hard couch, then swung from side to side, bounced 

and bumped while the couch is tilted head down. The vast majority of people would 

become nauseated, vomit, have tummy pains and become disoriented. This is what 

had happened to the miner lying in the back of the ambulance while it descended a 

rough, steep track. He was suffering from severe motion sickness! 

Three ambulances and their crews, a tow truck, plus one doctor and many hours of 

work resulted in a patient with a sprained ankle, bruises and grazes being evacuated 

safely to hospital. 

No-one should be blamed (except the dispatcher who sent a conventional 

ambulance up a rough track), as the situation could have involved a seriously ill 

victim with back and head injuries. Many emergency evacuations end in such a 

manner, and no one involved in such a situation should feel guilty for over reacting. 

It is far better to be sure than sorry. 

52


Doctor’s Bag 

In the mid-1970s, when I was barely out of nappies as a medico, I headed off to 

the United Kingdom to experience the big wide world and learn a bit of general 

practice in an environment where I could not harm my reputation too much. 

One of my first jobs was in one of the less salubrious parts of Portsmouth on the 

south coast of England. Aussie locums always ended up with the worst jobs, and this 

was no exception. Never the less, I was determined to make my mark, and do my bit 

the best way I could. 

The first thing any principal in general practice does, is give the locum all the jobs 

he doesn’t want to do - such as home visits. 

As I was very new at all this, I wasn’t properly kitted out, so I found myself with an 

complementary airline carry-on bag full of emergency medicines, pen, torch, assorted 

other medical equipment and a brand new script pad, visiting the elderly and sick. 

This did not strike me as being very professional, so after making some enquiries 

from the practice manager, I found my way to a surgical supply shop in the city. 

On a high and dusty shelf they had one long forgotten doctor’s bag. Now this 

wasn’t just any ordinary bag, but one that may have well been in stock from before 

the world war (which one I cannot determine). It had a wooden frame, a couple of big 

drawers, and lots of little polished wooden drawers (one of which slid out to reveal a 

row of small glass bottles, whose purpose totally eluded me). It was covered in thick, 

shiny black leather, had locks which closed with a purposeful clunk, and weighed half 

a ton. If this didn’t make me look like a proper GP, nothing would. 

This bag has accompanied me everywhere ever since, and is so solid it has served 

many other purposes. It is often used as a stool while I sit beside a patient’s bed, and 

on one occasion was used as a prop for a jack when I had to change a wheel in an 

awkward location in the middle of the Nullabor Plain. Other than a few scratches to 

the leather, it stood the test of time very well. 

Normally it resided permanently in the boot of my car, but a year or so ago it was 

thrown hastily onto the back seat rather than being placed in the boot, and so 

became visible to prying eyes. On returning to my car in the underground car park at 

my surgery, I found a side window of my car smashed, and the bag missing. It was a 

very sad day in my professional life. 

After reporting the theft to the police, and vaguely hoping it might turn up, I 

eventually succumbed and purchased a modern, light, fake leather covered doctor’s 

bag. It was very practical, but it didn’t have that same aura of Victorian authority, 

and you certainly couldn’t sit on it at the bedside. 

Almost a year later, the police at a town about 50km. from my surgery phoned. 

Had I lost a doctor’s bag? It seems a local fisherman, casting his line in a muddy river, 

had caught a snag, and after laboriously hauling in, found he had caught my doctor’s 

bag. Almost all the contents were still present, although ruined, but a final analysis 

53


revealed that a few ampoules of narcotics and benzos, and my script pad were 

missing. Fortunately the name on my letterheads was still legible, and the owner was 

found. 

I now had a very sorry excuse for a doctor’s bag. Full of mud, wooden frame and 

drawers swollen and distorted, leather stained and the little drawer of tiny glass 

bottles missing. It was put in the garage and forgotten. 

One of my daughters found it several months later. It had dried out, and although 

looking sad, could be repaired. She cleaned and polished it, put distorted bits into a 

bench vise for a few weeks, sanded and varnished the wood, oiled the locks, and 

restocked it appropriately. 

As a special present I have been given back my faithful old doctor’s bag, and now I 

feel like a proper GP again. 

All I need to do is keep working on those arm and back muscles so that I can carry 

it easily through those long nursing home corridors without sagging to one side. 

54


Split Asunder 

K. didn’t just enjoy sex, she adored it, revelled in it, and lived for it! It was her 

reason for being. 

She was a small, attractive, vivacious, nineteen year old single mother, and lived in 

cheap rented accommodation with her two year old daughter, whom she cared for 

and looked after well. 

Although otherwise sparsely furnished, on my visits to see her asthmatic daughter 

(she did not own a car), I noted the magnificent king sized water bed in the 

mistress’s pleasure chamber (bedroom would be a totally inadequate description). 

K. had frequent changes of partner, exhausting one after another with her 

demands. There was always a man hanging around the house, but never the same 

one. These men always seemed to have a quiet smile on their faces, and K. was 

always forthcoming in telling me why. She felt she had to tell someone about her 

latest encounter, and as a person who was bound by the ethical code of medical 

silence, she was happy to unburden herself to me, apparently reliving the pleasures 

as she did so. 

K’s life was an erotic dream, with one sensual pleasure following another, until one 

fateful night when everything went horribly wrong. 

Her new man was endowed with a small ring through his foreskin, and this 

ornament added extra pleasure to an encounter that became steadily more 

gymnastic and athletic. 

Suddenly, K experienced excruciating pain that stopped all activity instantly, and 

this was followed by a torrent of blood that continued unabated. I was summoned 

from home. 

At the surgery, with the new boyfriend pacing nervously in the waiting room, I 

carefully examined K’s private (or relatively private) parts. 

There was a deep ragged gash about 4cm. long across her vulva and into her 

vagina. Blood was oozing steadily from the wound. She had effectively been given an 

episiotomy, the type of cut that doctors make to enlarge the opening of the birth 

canal to ease the delivery of the baby’s head during childbirth. 

During their vigorous encounter, her boyfriend’s penile ring had presumably 

become twisted in the soft flesh of the vulva, and with the subsequent thrust, he had 

split her asunder. 

Half an hour of careful suturing ensued, and eventually she was as good as new 

again, but I strongly suspect that she will be extraordinarily cautious about any other 

boyfriends who decorate the most essential part of their anatomy (by K’s desire) 

with any jewellry. 

55


The Secretary Factor 

W. strode into the surgery in a very purposeful manner. A successful businessman 

in his early forties, he knew what he wanted, was determined to get it, and would 

take no nonsense on the way. He intended to treat this medical consultation in the 

same way as a business negotiation, as he was familiar and confidant with the latter, 

but not the former. The problem would be dealt with on his terms or not at all. 

W. came straight to the point. He had recently been on a business trip to Bangkok, 

and since his return had developed a yellow discharge from his penis and it hurt to 

urinate. He believed he had picked up some obscure tropical disease from an insect 

bite. 

Knowing the reputation of this southeast Asian flesh pot, I asked him if he had any 

sexual contacts while in the vicinity of the infamous Patpong Rd. 

He initially expressed surprise at such an intimate question. How could I suspect 

that he, a respectable representative of a major Australian company could do such a 

thing. 

Pointing out to him that 99.99% of penile discharges were caused by sex, and that 

I was not aware of any mosquito born disease that could be responsible for such a 

condition, bought forward a form of confession. 

His business partner had dared him to go with a bar girl while he was there. It was 

brief, business like (naturally), and not very enjoyable. Unfortunately, the degree of 

pleasure has no relationship to the risk of venereal disease. 

The offending organ was examined, a swab of the discharge was taken, and he was 

given a prescription for the medication that was most likely to be effective in curing 

the problem. I suspected he had gonorrhoea. He was also given a form for blood 

tests to check for more serious venereal diseases. 

Then came the really nasty question - “Have you had sex with your wife since you 

returned from Bangkok?” 

Of course he had, his wife had naturally needed such activity (according to him 

anyway) after he had been away for two weeks. Why shouldn’t he have sex with his 

wife? 

When I explained that she had probably caught his venereal disease too, he started 

to deflate. Further explanation followed. She would have to be told about his 

indiscretion in Bangkok, she would have to be seen by a doctor too, and she would 

almost certainly require the same treatment. If she did not present to a doctor for 

treatment, she could become sterile and seriously ill, and he would catch the 

gonorrhoea back from her the next time they had sex. There was no alternative, both 

partners must receive adequate treatment. 

In an attempt to help him I said that hopefully she would forgive him this one 

indiscretion. My reply was a withering stare. 

56


With his prescription and blood test form clutched in one hand, and strict 

instructions to tell his wife and return for the pathology results in three days, he 

headed for the door. 

With his hand on the door knob he paused and turned. Plaintively he asked “Do I 

have to tell my secretary too?” 

It took a few seconds for the penny to drop in my unsuspecting brain. 

“Have you had sex with her?” 

“Yes, but only once this week” 

He now had two women to talk to. 

He left the surgery with shoulders drooping and none of the determination and 

bounce to his step with which he had arrived. 

57


The ABBA Fan 

There are some patients whom you wish would just go away and never return. Mr. 

P was such a person. 

He was grossly obese, weighing well over the 140Kg. limit of my surgery scales, 

and would have shamed any Japanese sumo wrestler. His ten year old car had a 

permanent lean to the right, as the springs on that side had long since abandoned 

any hope of coping with the massive forces from above. He was also rough and 

strong, and doors, chairs, pens, magazines and other objects with which he came into 

contact in the surgery waiting room, were never the same again. 

Mr. P was not overly familiar with soap and water, and a combination of heat, 

sweat, and obesity gave him a body odour that made most people cross the street in 

an attempt to avoid him. His breath was even worse, a problem accentuated by the 

medication he had to take on a regular basis. His problems worsened whenever he 

stopped his medication, because Mr. P. was stark raving mad, and only a handful of 

pills every day kept him under some degree of control. 

Unfortunately, Mr. P frequently neglected to take his pills, and I would be called 

upon to sign the appropriate papers to have him certified, and taken away by the 

police to the nearest psychiatric hospital. 

I always felt very sorry for the police in this situation, as manhandling a massive 

madman into the back seat of a patrol car that was not much smaller than Mr. P, was 

no easy task. 

After he was released from hospital, back on his medication, he would storm into 

the surgery, send the receptionist scurrying for cover under the desk, and demand to 

see me. 

Provided the air freshener was in good supply, we actually got on reasonably well 

as doctor and patient, and had some quite interesting discussions. 

He enjoyed sex, but had to pay for it, as no woman in her right mind would go 

anywhere near him under normal circumstances. I admired the intestinal fortitude of 

the prostitutes he hired (presumably at premium rates) even more than I admired the 

police for their efforts with him. 

On one of his visits to me he asked for a very private operation - he wanted his 

penis enlarged by a factor of three or four times. He had been very put out the night 

before when his hired girl had been unable to utilise his penis under mountainous 

mounds and rolls of fat. He did not want this to happen again! He thought my idea 

that it might be easier to make the rest of him smaller, than one vital part larger, was 

quite stupid. 

Mr. P. is no longer one of my patients, and I have no idea what has become of him, 

but our last encounter was quite memorable. 

I was woken by a phone call from one of his neighbours at two in the morning. Mr. 

P was having one of his turns, could I come and put him away again. 

58


It was not difficult to find his home, the flashing lights of the police cars and 

ambulances lit up the street, every neighbour within a kilometre was curbside, and 

the music from Mr. P’s extraordinarily powerful tape deck was booming out across 

the suburb. 

Mr. P was having a ball, to the grossly magnified reverberations of his favourite 

rock group, ABBA, he was dancing on the steep roof of his two storied house - and 

he was stark naked. 

The site of those hundreds of kilos of naked flesh quivering and jiggling in the 

police spot light to the tune of Money, Money, Money was too much entertainment to 

be resisted by anyone, and the event is still recalled in awe by residents years later. 

It took over an hour, and the assistance of the fire brigade and the emergency 

rescue squad to retrieve him from the roof. When the music was turned off he 

became quite aggressive, and when he finally reached ground level and was in the 

grip of a dozen or so police and fireman, an injection into a vein of five times the 

normal dose of sedative finally slowed him down just enough to stuff him into the 

back of an ambulance which had its stretchers removed. He lay naked on the vehicle 

floor looking like a beached albino whale. 

Slowly, with creaking springs, the ambulance took him yet again to the psychiatric 

hospital for what I assume was a very long stay. 

59


Size & Frequency 

Some people are tall, others short. Some have big noses, others small noses. The 

dimensions of human beings, and their various parts, can vary significantly from one 

person to another, and those parts of the anatomy that are used for sexual activity 

in both males and females, are no exception to this rule. 

There are some incidents in general practice which recur repeatedly, and cannot be 

related to any one person, time or place. The consultations I have had over the years 

regarding genital dimensions are innumerable. 

In a young woman’s mind, the perception of the erect male penis may become 

quite distorted. Sex education classes may clinically give the average dimensions of 

an erect penis, but school girl chatter may exaggerate this to proportions that are 

quite beyond the bounds of probability. 

The poor girl may have always had trouble using tampons, which are relatively thin 

and short, and she may have examined herself internally. She cannot perceive how 

she could ever fit a huge penis into such a small space, and she soon believes that 

she has an extremely short vagina, as she can feel her cervix only a short distance 

away from her vaginal opening. 

This becomes very embarrassing, and she may resist getting involved with anyone 

until the problem is surgically fixed, or she may fear that she is doomed to live a 

sexless life alone. Sometimes she has had sex once and found it painful and 

unsuccessful, again a relatively common occurrence for the first few times. This is 

due to lack of experience, nervousness, lack of natural lubrication (the probable 

cause of pain) and the tearing of any remnant of the hymen. When you first learn to 

ride a bike, you tend to wobble and fall a few times, but after a short time, you can 

ride smoothly along a straight line. Sex can be considered in the same way - practice 

makes perfect. 

Examination of these women is essential, but almost invariably the advice is not to 

despair, as they are completely normal in size. 

The vagina is a very elastic and expandable pouch of tissue. It tends to be the 

mirror image of the penis. When sexually aroused, the male penis enlarges, and so 

does the female vagina. During sex, the cervix is pushed forward and out of the way, 

so that the vagina can expand naturally to accommodate the penis. It is not 

appropriate for a woman to judge the capacity of her vagina when she is not sexually 

aroused. 

The reverse, and more common problem, is the sensitive concern of a young man 

about the size of his penis. This can be a serious issue of embarrassment and poor 

self-image while growing up. They all come asking for a treatment or technique that 

can be used to make the penis larger. I have seen an erect penis that is only 3cm. 

long, but I don’t believe any claims when it comes to maximum sizes. 

60


A small penis has no effect upon a man’s ability to father children, and continued 

reassurance on this point may help the patient gain confidence in their “manhood”. 

The size of the penis does not determine whether a man is a good lover or not. 

Women appreciate the foreplay and fondling as much as the sex act itself, and if a 

man can become skilled in the former, they will keep any woman happy. Even during 

intercourse, the most sensitive part of a woman’s sexual organs are the clitoris, 

which is at the outside entrance to the vagina, and the so-called “G spot” which is 

just inside, and on the front wall of the vagina, at a point where even the shortest 

penis can give stimulation. 

As a last resort, if they really do want to compete with others in size, there is an 

apparatus available from “marital aid” shops that if used carefully, may help slowly 

and slightly enlarge the penis. These involve a tube that is placed over the penis, and 

a pump that creates a vacuum - I will leave the rest to your imagination. There is also 

a plastic surgery technique available, but it is very rarely used. 

No man, regardless of penile size, should underestimate their sexual prowess, as 

most will be able to satisfy the sexual appetite of any woman if she is approached in 

the right way. 

In a related vein, I recall the shy sixteen year old who presented with a cold, or 

some other minor problem, before she finally got around to the main point of the 

consultation. 

She was taking the oral contraceptive pill, and was having no problems, but was a 

little confused about one point. If she had sex with six different boys in a night, did 

she have to take six of the contraceptive pills, or was one still enough? 

I calmly (I think) assured her that one was adequate, regardless how frequently, or 

how promiscuously, she undertook sexual activity. 

61


Vasectomy Revenge 

Most men are convinced (blackmailed?) into having a vasectomy by their wives. 

The woman feels that she has had the children, she has taken responsibility for 

contraception in the past, and now it is time for the male to do something positive to 

prevent further children. 

Most men are scared stiff of having a vasectomy, as they are not quite sure if it 

will affect their libido and masculinity, let alone know what happens to the hormones 

and sperm. Will sex still be enjoyable? Will they still ejaculate? All these questions, 

and more, pour forth at any consultation regarding this operation. 

The male hormones which establish and maintain masculinity are produced in the 

testicles. These hormones are not affected in any way by a vasectomy as they enter 

the blood stream directly from the testes and continue to function normally. 

The man's ejaculation is not affected either, as the seminal (sperm nourishing) fluid 

from the sperm storage sac (seminal vesicle) in the groin is passed as normal. 

The sperm continue to be produced in the testes, but as they cannot pass down 

the sperm tube, these microscopic particles die and are absorbed into the body 

without causing any problems. 

A man is not immediately sterile after the operation. Because sperm are stored in a 

sperm storage sac above where the tube is tied, this must be emptied by about a 

dozen ejaculations over the few weeks after the procedure. 

Because of this problem, after the operation the man is told to have regular sex, 

while taking precautions against conception (eg: a condom), and asked to return to 

his doctor in about two months to have a test done on his ejaculate, to ensure that 

no sperm are still present in the seminal vesicle. 

Mr. L., I knew, had been persuaded over a long period of time by his rather 

domineering wife, to undergo a vasectomy. He had done so relatively unwillingly, but 

now the deed had been done. About a month later, Mrs. L. came to see me. 

“Doctor, I don’t think I can take it any more. I’ll just have to have my tubes tied 

instead.” 

This didn’t quite make sense in view of her husband’s recent vasectomy, but 

suspecting there may be some love triangle or other relationship I was not aware of, I 

enquired further. 

“Well, you know doctor, how the man isn’t sterile straight after the operation?” 

I agreed that this was so. 

“I know that he has to have lots of sex to make him sterile, but every night, night 

after night, week after week, it’s just too much!” 

It seems Mr. L. had sretched the truth slightly, or become confused. He told his 

wife that after the operation, he had to have sex every night for two months, to 

ensure that the sperm were completely drained from his body, otherwise the 

operation would be a complete failure. 

62


Delicate negotiations ensued, to reach a compromise that would protect Mr. L’s 

dignity, and save Mrs. L. from exhaustion. 

While it lasted, his revenge was sweet! 

63


F...ing Good 

He had long hair, multiple ear rings, tattoos and wore a workplace boiler suit. His 

wife was cleanly, simply and neatly dressed, polite and had a toddler at hand. 

His wife explained that they had seen another doctor twice in the last week about 

his sore eye, but the drops and ointment he had been given had not helped. 

Each time I turned to the patient to ask a question, his wife answered. In an 

attempt to get at least some words from him, I asked him what type of work he 

performed. Again his wife answered, explaining that before a serious head injury at 

work he had been a boilermaker, and afterwards the company had kept him on as a 

labourer. Since the injury he didn’t like to talk as he couldn’t speak properly. 

Thinking he may have a stutter or some other speach impediment I examined his 

red eye. Through a magnifying loupe, the foreign body imbedded on the cornea was 

obvious, and soon removed. 

As he left, the patient turned to me and said “Your f....ing better than the last 

f...ing doctor. At least you f...ing well looked at me and f...ing well listened to my 

f...ing wife”. 

The lessons? 

• Don’t judge a book by its cover. 

• You miss more by not looking than not knowing. 

• There but for the grace of God go I. 

• Accept all compliments graciously. 

64


Remote Control 

R. was an enthusiastic amateur who had a great body, knew she had a great body, 

and enjoyed using it for the entertainment of her many boyfriends. Some lasted 

several months, other were a one night stand, but I suspect that none regretted the 

contact, however brief. 

Because of her promiscuity, she understood the benefits of regular check ups, as 

she had been caught in the past with venereal diseases, particularly the hard to 

detect chlamydia. On this occasion she had attended the surgery for something 

completely unrelated to her sexual prowess or activities. 

After finishing the routine part of the consultation, I looked back in her file and 

pointed out to her that it was some time since she had been checked over for any 

venereal problems. Quick as a flash she was up, her shorts and knickers were off, and 

she headed for the couch. 

As her bare bottom wiggled away from me towards the examination cubicle, she 

appeared to remove a sanitary napkin belt from around her waist, so I called after her 

that if she was having a period it was rather difficult to examine her, and she should 

come back next week. 

The examination was to be a Pap smear and swabs from the vagina for any 

infection, but if menstrual blood is present, it is almost impossible for a Pap smear to 

be read by the pathologist, and difficult for an examining doctor to take good quality 

swabs for VD. 

Some women are extraordinarily relaxed about their bodies, and laughing, R. turned 

around and came back to me (starkers from the waist down) holding out what she 

had been wearing. 

A small white cone of rubber projected from the side of a rounded box which had 

been held in position over her vagina by the sanitary napkin belt. 

“What on earth is that?” was my query. 

She sat down and explained the wonders of modern technology when applied to 

exotic erotica. What she had been wearing was a radio controlled, inflatable vibrating 

dildo. When her boy friend of the day though of her, he would press a button on his 

remote control, and a battery would power a tiny motor in the rounded box that 

would start the rubber cone vibrating and slowly inflate it. Provided he was in range, 

he could turn her on and off at will! 

As my slack jaw resting on my chest with astonishment, she left the device on the 

desk, walked over to the couch, and lay back to be examined. 

While mechanically going through the motions of taking the smear and swabs, the 

only other question that my numb mind could think of was “Where did you get it?”. 

She named the most appropriately titled city in the world for erotic adventure - 

Bangkok. 

65


What Wheels? 

My surgery is situated in a commercial centre that houses a group dental practice, 

chemist, physio, specialist practice, x-ray and a music school (to add a touch of 

class) as well as the five GPs in my practice. It is a modern, practical and attractive 

centre, well situated on a main road intersection, with good access and adequate 

parking, both in the open air and in a large underground car park. 

While consulting, my phone rang. 

“Doctor, someone’s trying to steal your car!”. 

A call like that is pretty much guaranteed to move you swiftly out of the presence 

of the patient into the immediate vicinity of your car, which was parked in the cool 

underground. 

I was stopped en route by encountering a well known, young, fit, male patient in 

the waiting room, who was holding a similar aged but smaller man in a very firm head 

lock in front of a significant number of open mouthed patients. 

“G’day doc, will we go outside to discuss this bastard in private?” 

I followed the head locker and his head lockee (don’t you just love appropriate 

neologisms!) out onto the wide verandah that fronts the centre. 

“This guy’s ripped the wheels off your car”. 

I still don’t think I had said anything, but sprinted down the stairs to find my car 

jacked up on one side, resting on the wheel hubs on the other side. Three wheels 

were missing and the remaining one was partly undone. I returned upstairs. 

The head lockee spoke - “He’s strangling me! Let me go!” (or words to that effect 

- the actual words would only appear in print in the deepest of underground 

publications). 

“He’s fine doc, I know just how hard to hold bastards like this.” 

“Where are my wheels?” 

The head lock tightened up a notch, and a strangled cry came from the throat of 

the thief along with the words “Behind the building”. 

I went downstairs again, and hidden in the garden I found three mag wheels and 

the lock nuts. So far no great loss. I returned upstairs again, and heard the rest of 

the story. 

My patient friend (this will deserve at least one free consultation for him!) had 

been parking downstairs to attend the physio when he noticed my car at a peculiar 

angle. On his way upstairs he passed the chemist, and commented to him that there 

was something funny going on with a car in the car park. The chemist raced down his 

back stairs, while the patient walked back down the public stairs to see what was 

going on. The chemist saw two villains crouching beside my car, and he shouted at 

them, at which point they ran off in different directions. The patient, seeing what had 

happened, collared one of the villains, and dragged him up to my surgery. 

66


By this stage the police had been called, and after a five minute delay they arrived 

on the scene, and proceeded to take the offender into custody. I heartily thanked the 

alert patient and chemist, called the RACQ (auto club) to return the wheels to their 

correct position, and returned to a long neglected and rather bemused patient who 

was patiently waiting by my desk. 

Later in the day the police returned to officially interview me, and to give me some 

marvellous news. The offender was well known to them, and had been previously 

charged 15 times, the most recently only two weeks earlier for receiving stolen 

goods. But he had turned 18 only two days earlier, could now be charged as an adult, 

and as the goods were valued at more than A$2000, the charge was a more serious 

one. 

The rest of the afternoon dragged, as all my patients had heard wild rumours, and 

everyone of them wanted to hear the real story, from the source. Somehow the drive 

home seemed slightly different as I felt the wheels roll smoothly under me. 

67


The Tattooed Sandwich 

She was a new patient, in her early twenties and attractive in a rather rough way. 

Six or so ear rings pierced the edge of each ear, and she was dressed in jeans that 

appeared to have been moulded to her body. A “boob tube” tried to cover her top 

half, but the effect was rather spoilt by the angular appearance of a cigarette packet 

tucked in beside one breast. This manouvre was necessary as her jean pockets were 

so tightly applied to her posterior that they were totally non-functional. 

She rapidly came to the point of her visit, a vaginal discharge that had been 

present a few days. So onto the couch she hopped, and managed with amazing speed 

to peel off her lower clothing. She didn’t bother to use the sheet provided for 

modesty, and as I approached to examine her, a tattoo immediately above her pubic 

hair caught my attention - in fact it was totally impossible not to notice a message 

which read “Gentleman’s hole” with an arrow pointing down. 

Desperately trying not to be affected by the blunt invitation, I proceeded to 

examine her. A foul, yellow green vaginal discharge was immediately obvious. 

Vaginal infections can be caused by fungi (eg: thrush), microscopic animals (eg: 

trichomoniasis) or bacteria. Thrush is by far the most common form, and most 

women will develop one of these infections at some time during their life. 

Trichomonal infections are a relatively mild and easily treated form of venereal 

disease. Bacterial infections can take many different forms and may range from the 

purely sexually transmitted diseases such as gonnorhoea, to a mixed bag of many 

different types of bugs. She appeared to have the ultimate in mixed infections. 

As I took some swabs to be sent to the laboratory for further testing and 

identification of the offending organisms, I asked, half under my breath and thinking 

aloud, how could she catch such a gross infection. She promptly said it could have 

been because she had a sandwich with a couple of guys the previous weekend. 

This sudden change of direction from the venereal to the gustatory stopped me in 

mid swab, as I could not in any way understand how a sandwich could result in any 

vaginal infection, let alone one so gross. Somewhat foolishly, I asked for an 

explanation. 

“You know doc, one guy comes in the front hole, and another in the back, and 

after they’ve had a good poke around, they swap over and do you from the other 

side.” She was the meat in the sandwich. 

There is probably no surer way to catch a bacterial infection of the vagina than to 

have anal sex and then vaginal sex, let alone doing the two together simultaneously 

as well as consecutively. Who knows what further germs her partners may have 

added to the stew. 

Rather courageously I suggested that as the vagina and anus had both been well 

used, it would be appropriate to examine and take swabs from the back passage as 

68


well as the front, and so obligingly she rolled on her side to let me examine the other 

aperture. 

Another tattoo revealed itself centred just above the cleft of her buttocks. Above 

an appropriately pointing arrow were permanently placed the words “Arse hole”! 

69


Father’s Day 

Sunday morning surgery is a service our practice provides, and on Father’s day, I 

(who work with two women and a newly married male with no children, and have two 

teenage daughters who love to pamper their dad) drew the short straw. 

The receptionist’s comment on arrival that it would probably be very quiet, and 

that we would be away in no time, was to be fateful. 

Thirty seconds later our first patient, L, arrived. The last time I had seen her was 

two years previously when she had been admitted to an acute psychiatric hospital for 

severe behavioural problems. She suffered from cerebral palsy (spasticity) as well, 

and required a wheelchair for mobility, but has normal (?) intellect. L was 

accompanied by her thirty year old twin sister who has always suffered deeply buried 

guilt feelings that she escaped her mother’s womb without the disabilities of her 

sister. 

L’s sister had been summoned to the nursing home where she resided, and ordered 

to remove her forthwith - they could no longer tolerate her behaviour. As the story 

was told, L became steadily more abusive, with every swear word and threat known 

being voiced at maximum volume. By now the waiting room was filling rapidly, and 

the children with snotty noses and sore ears, along with their parents, heard every 

word. 

The sister and I ignored her, so the act worsened, and throwing herself out of her 

wheelchair, she tore the venetian blinds from the window. Time for further action - 

she was wheeled into the toilet and locked in to vent her anger and abuse on an 

unsympathetic pedestal. 

This action had the effect of making everyone in the waiting room have a sudden 

desire to use the toilet, and so after ten minutes, and having time to obtain a 

sensible uninterupted history from the twin sister, L was wheeled back into the 

consulting room. 

Trying to be nice, friendly and sympathetic, we explained to L that I would have to 

find somewhere else for her to live. With this an even worse temper tantrum erupted. 

Her sister and I held her at bay with chairs as she scratched, spat, bit and smashed 

her way around the surgery. The sister’s skirt was torn off, which gave L the idea of 

how to really stir up the situation - she stripped off to be totally and completely 

naked, while still swearing at full volume that she “desperately needed a f....”. 

Time for definitive action. The police were called to take L to her new home - a 

psychiatric centre. 

While waiting for the arrival of the police, I decided that I would have to start 

seeing some of the increasing number of patients in the waiting room, and so leaving 

L’s twin barricading the naked L into the examination room with several chairs, I 

ventured out to start consulting in one of the other GP’s rooms. 

70


Patient number one was a delightful three year old with a sore ear. The diagnosis 

of infection was easy, but as I wrote out the script, the prolonged wait became too 

much for him. He squatted and without mother or I noticing, pulled down his pants 

and emptied his bladder and rectum onto the surgery floor. 

L was still being successfully controlled by the barricade of chairs, so another 

consultation was started in yet another doctor’s room. Desperately hoping that it 

would be a simple, quick problem, I was faced with a distraught, tearful, shaking 

mother whose daughter had just been diagnosed as having meningitis by the local 

hospital. The explanations, consolations, sympathy and empathy had only just been 

switched on to full power when the police arrived. 

The presence of a very burly constable and a petite policewoman cowered L 

significantly, and the commanding bass tones of the male, accompanied by the 

persuasions of the female of the pair, had L meekly redressing. 

But L couldn’t resist a parting throw away line as she was wheeled past the goggle 

eyed audience in the waiting room. 

“I hope the doc f...s all of you as well as he f....d me!!”. 

So back to the hysterical mother, and many extremely curious patients as Father’s 

day gradually passed away. 

71


Phone Fad 

The mobile phone is now ubiquitous in Australia. One in ten of every man, woman 

and child in the country now owns one of the 1.7 million mobile phones in use. 

Not to have one of these phones is almost considered socially irresponsible, and 

suicidal in any competitive business. Advertisements make us feel guilty if we allow 

our daughters or wives to go out at night without a phone in their purse. If a 

businessman is not in his office, we expect to be able to contact them instantly on 

their mobile. 

Considering the size of Australia, and the fact that a phone must be within about 

10 km. of a transmitter to work, the coverage available is extraordinary. 88% of 

Australians live within range for use of a mobile phone, and the digital version of 

these phones can be taken to and used in over 20 countries without any modification 

or prior arrangement. 

In medicine the mobile phone has become invaluable. All doctors can now be on call 

all the time with minimal inconvenience if they so desire. In the old days, being on call 

meant hanging around at home waiting for the phone to ring. Today, the mobile 

phone can act as an answering machine as well as a phone. I can go to the theatre, 

turn off the phone so as not to disturb other patrons, and at interval, check the 

screen on the phone to see who has called, and then without having to find both 

change and a public phone, I can call them back. Some phones have a silent vibrate 

mode to alert you of an incoming call. 

Telephone etiquette in public places is still being developed. Some business people 

in restaurants love to be seen doing major deals on their mobile while tucking into the 

smoked salmon and sipping their chardonnay. Others more politely excuse 

themselves to talk outside or in a quiet corner. 

In moving vehicles, the use of hand held mobile phones is illegal in some Australian 

states, and hands free kits must be installed. The legislation is being considered in 

Queensland, but has been stalled by evidence that smoking while driving a car is more 

dangerous than using a phone. It would be political suicide at present to ban drivers 

from smoking, but that may come in the future. 

The idea for this article was triggered by some recent experiences I have had with 

patients and their phones. On several occasions I have had patients during a 

consultation answer their mobile phones. Virtually all apologise, take a quick message, 

and then turn off the phone for the rest of the consultation. The phone is so much a 

fixture on their belt or in their purse that they just forget about it until it rings. 

There are always those people who have no idea of the appropriate time and place. 

While I was recently examining a child with asthma, his father’s mobile phone rang. He 

answered it and carried on a conversation as the boy’s mother and I tried to get on 

with the consultation. The louder the father talked, the louder the mother and I 

talked, until we were in a shouting match trying to hear over each other. The father 

72


was quite offended when I opened the door and ushered him out, as he later claimed 

he wanted to hear what was wrong with his son, and I should have waited until he had 

finished his conversation. 

But now I have the ultimate mobile phone story, that also demonstrates the 

relaxed attitude of the modern woman to her body and society. 

This morning (about an hour before writing this), I was performing a Pap smear on 

a smartly dressed businesswoman in her thirties. The speculum entered only a second 

before her phone rang. Without hesitation, she reached across to her bag on the 

couch side bench, took out her phone and note book, and calmly processed an order 

for some stationery she was selling as I, in an equally calm manner, proceeded with 

that most intimately intrusive medical examination. 

It is indeed fortunate that the mobile phone is not yet a video phone! 

73


Living Nightmare 

This story starts in a very small outback town, one of those towns that progress 

has completely bypassed, and is now inhabited by a handful of families, and a few 

labourers who mend the dirt road and act as roustabouts on nearby stations. 

Y. was born in a larger centre nearby, but had lived all her life in this tiny 

settlement with her parents and three brothers. 

She came to see me when she was in her early twenties, and her first few visits 

were routine. One winter morning I arrived at the surgery to find her huddled 

shivering in the doorway, dressed only in a nightie. All other patients waited for over 

an hour as she spilled out her nightmare to me. 

Y’s father was a hard drinking man who worked as little as possible to maintain his 

position as a council ganger. Her mother was described to me as a sullen, quiet 

woman, who never showed any affection to the children, and also drank to excess. 

There was little else to do in the town. 

When Y turned eleven, she started to mature into a woman, and for the first time 

in her life, her father started to show some affection towards her. In her innocence, Y 

did not realise where this affection would lead, but enjoyed the attention she had 

previously lacked. It was not long before affection became incest, and although Y felt 

is was vaguely wrong, her upbringing was so lacking that she was unable to resist the 

attention that her father lavished upon her. 

Soon after, Y’s mother left home. She has never seen her again. 

An attractive teenage girl has few, if any defences in a totally male household. The 

example set by Y’s father was soon followed by her three older brothers. She became 

a sex slave to the four of them, with no way of escape. 

Y recounted to me a harrowing experience she had at about fourteen. Her father 

and a few friends were drinking and yarning on the back verandah of their home. An 

argument developed, and Y was summoned from inside. In front of all, her father 

stripped her naked to demonstrate her beauty to his drunken friends. 

This was a turning point for her, as she realised she was living in a nightmare, and 

her only escape was school. She took the bus an hour each way every day to school, 

and destitute as she was, she remembers the kindness of teachers, friends and other 

pupils who gave her second hand clothing, shoes, school books etc. that kept her 

going without having to ask her father for anything. She was a diligent pupil, who put 

her terror of home behind her when in class, and she did well. 

Because going to school was routine, her father did not notice her absence, and 

she managed to progress through to grade twelve, and obtained good results all the 

way. 

Meanwhile, she tried to blank her mind to what was happening at home. Since the 

stripping incident, the men of the town began to expect further shows, and it was 

74


not long before Y was sexually servicing, at her father’s command, a wide variety of 

men. Her father was supplied with more than adequate supplies of alcohol in return. 

Never did she tell anyone of her torment, because she was so ashamed of herself 

and her family, but with the assistance of one of her teachers, she applied for, and 

won, a scholarship to a teacher’s training college in another part of the state. 

At eighteen years of age, when the college year started, she packed her bag, 

caught a bus, and as far as her father and brothers were concerned, disappeared. 

Life became relatively normal. She lived in student accommodation near the 

college, but kept to herself, and understandably, avoided any boy friends. She began 

to relax, and even enjoy life a little. 

Then the nightmare started again. She arrived back at her accommodation to find 

her father waiting in her room. He had tracked her down, was missing her, and 

wanted his “conjugal rights”. Y was too frightened, and still too insecure to do 

anything against her father, and she consented. 

Intermittently, throughout the rest of her course, Y’s father would appear for a 

few days, have his way with her, and then return to the bush. Y immersed herself in 

her studies again as an escape, and excelled. 

Graduation arrived without her father being aware, as she had told him she was 

enrolled in a four year course instead of the actual three. She tried to escape again, 

and took a posting not in her home state, but in a capital city on the other side of 

the country, as far as possible away from her father. 

She enjoyed teaching, and was good at her job. She lived near the school in my 

practice area. After eighteen months life gradually became normal, except for the 

total lack of any man in her life. 

Late one night the doorbell rang. She lived alone, and on peeking through the 

curtains, she saw her father outside. Terrified, she hid in the house and ignored the 

door bell. She heard smashing glass, and then her father was inside, and he found her. 

She was more mature and self confident now. She defied him, told him what she 

thought of him, told him to leave and never see her again. He ignored her, and used 

his superior strength to rape her repeatedly. In the early hours of the morning she 

escaped to where I found her huddling and freezing in my surgery doorway. 

Prolonged counselling, referral to psychologists, and police enquiries followed. Y 

moved again at the end of that year, and I have lost contact with her, but her father 

was charged with rape, and convicted. He is now serving a long prison term. 

I can only hope that Y continues to display the intestinal fortitude that has enabled 

her to survive this long, and will eventually be able to settle into a normal life, free of 

any threat from her father. 

75


Control Freak 

Every night at 9.50pm, Mrs. J had sex. Seven days a week, 365 days a year, she 

knew what was going to happen at exactly that time, but she didn’t know just how it 

was going to happen, because Mr. J was a very accomplished and experimental lover. 

I had known this couple for two decades, and to all intents and purposes, they 

were a perfectly normal middle aged pair with two children living in average suburbia. 

She had a regular secretarial job in the city and he was a carpenter. What I didn’t 

know was that he was a total control freak. 

For years the control of Mrs. J by Mr. J had been steadily increasing. In the morning 

he got up first, made her breakfast, brought it to her in bed (he was very attentive), 

kissed her goodbye, and left for work. She then got up, dressed and breakfasted, 

slammed the door after her as she left the house, and also went to work, but she had 

to return from work on a specific bus. This was when the control became freaky. 

He met her at the bus stop, walked her the short distance home and let her into 

the house (she did not have her own house key) and she then cleaned, cooked, ate 

and ironed until 8pm. Television (his choice of programme) was watched, until 9.30, 

when she went and had a shower and got into bed. He followed ten minutes later, 

and by 9.50pm was in bed also, and they had sex. 

In earlier years she was told to take the pill constantly to avoid having menstrual 

periods, but then she had needed a hysterectomy, so there were never any missed 

days. 

On Thursday night they went shopping, and he decided exactly what they would 

buy, followed by a quick meal in a fast food restaurant before home and to bed in 

time for the nights usual activity. 

Weekends were slightly different. She was allowed to use the car to play tennis on 

Saturday afternoon, but he noted the mileage before and after her trip, and woe 

betide her if there was any discrepancy. That night they went to an early movie, 

followed by a meal at a cheap restaurant, and again home by 9.30pm. 

On Sundays, Mrs. J received a bonus with an extra session of sex. The whole family 

had (always) roast chicken for lunch, that was accompanied by a bottle of cheap 

champagne, then to the bedroom again to finish the champagne and for another 

session of sex, usually of the more exotic type. The 9.50pm session was usually more 

sedate on Sundays. 

The whole scheme came unstuck one evening when the work Mrs. J had promised 

to finish for her boss before she went home took longer than expected, and she 

missed her bus. The next bus was half an hour later, so by the time she got home, 

Mr. J was furious and demanded explanations. Her excuses were not accepted, but 

instead of meekly submitting to her husband’s tirade, she took the car, and much to 

his increasing fury, drove off into the evening - to my surgery. 

76


Who else could she talk to? She had virtually no girl friends, and at least the doctor 

would keep her confidences secret (names and professions in this story have been 

changed). She could not escape elsewhere as she had no money or credit cards of 

her own. Her pay from work had always been deposited directly into her husband’s 

account. 

Her story poured out. He was kind, generous, caring, an expert lover, but she 

couldn’t stand the control and lack of freedom any more. After almost an hour, she 

left and I faced my full waiting room. She didn’t want me to talk to her husband, or 

for him to even know where she had been, but agreed to return a fortnight later, or 

sooner if there were problems. 

On her return home after “driving around for a while” he accepted her back, but 

decided to punish her for her disobedience by moving into another bed room and 

denying her sex. She in response redirected her pay into a new personal bank 

account, started taking random buses home from work, and even drove to the shops 

after tennis so that the mileage on the car was too high, and she wouldn’t tell him 

where she had been. 

After only a week of this she came back again to see me, this time with her 

husband’s permission. She couldn’t stand it. She needed sex, she loved sex and after 

years of having it so regularly she wanted it back again. How could she get her 

freedom and her sex? 

A compromise was gradually negotiated over the next month. The husband never 

came to see me, but with an exchange of notes back and forth it was agreed that he 

would maintain some control of her life at certain times of the day and give her the 

sex she wanted, but she would be allowed the freedom to go out by herself, and 

spend as she liked within a budget set by him. 

It is still not what most women would consider to be the ideal situation, but she is 

thrilled with her freedom, and happy with her relationship. He in return has a happier 

wife who continues to look after him as he looks after her. 

77


After Life 

It was bad news, very bad news. 

He was a new patient, who had presented earlier in the day with a persistent 

cough. The X-ray I was viewing showed an obvious large cancer in the lung, with 

spread to other areas within the lung. 

I turned to the patient, who was sitting expectantly by my desk, to give him the 

verdict, and in my usual way, started by skirting around the final diagnosis, gradually 

tightening the circle of my explanation, so that by the time I arrived at the 

conclusion, it would be obvious to the patient. He was only in his late sixties, and 

although a smoker, he should have expected a few more good years. 

“I understand” he said, “I haven’t got too long to live, and there’s nothing that can 

be done about it”. 

I started to explain how I would ensure that he wouldn’t suffer, that I could ensure 

a peaceful end, but part way through my dialogue he interrupted. 

“That’s fine doc, but you’re more upset about this than I am. I’m not afraid of 

dying, in fact I’m quite looking forward to it”. 

“Looking forward to it?”. 

“Let me tell you a story” he said. 

And this was the story he told. 

.......................................................... 

“I’ve always been a heavy smoker, and this is the second time my habit has caught 

up with me. Fifteen years ago, I was a high school teacher in Mt.Isa. While teaching, I 

felt a sudden, crushing, severe pain in my chest, and collapsed in front of a class of 

15 year olds. As far as they were concerned, I was comatose, totally unconscious, 

but I could see everything that was going on, because as I collapsed, my mind floated 

free from my body, and hovered on the ceiling of the classroom, and from there I 

continued to observe. 

“I saw the boys and girls run forward to me, then two of them ran for help. I can 

even tell you which kids were where, and which ones went for help. The teacher from 

the next class room was the first to arrive, and I watched as he started CPR with the 

help of one of the boys. 

“It wasn’t long before an ambulance arrived, and I watched as my body was loaded 

in, and the ambulance officers continued the CPR as we raced through the streets of 

the city. 

“At the hospital, I was wheeled into a cubicle in the emergency department, and I 

watched as the the doctors and nurses clustered around, connected me to 

machinery, stuck needles into me, and continued to compress my chest. 

“All the time I was watching, I seemed to be drifting higher and higher, but the 

hospital had no roof, and I could still see into the cubicle where I was being treated. 

78


“Then I felt a presence, a warm, inviting presence, and turned around, away from 

watching my body and its attendants, and I saw a bright light. It was a welcoming, 

pleasant light, and I wanted to go to it. I felt my future lay that way, and started 

drifting up, away from all my cares and towards it. 

“I felt I had almost reached this delightful place, when with a sudden jerk, I was 

forced away, rushed back to earth, and found myself in agonising pain, in a place of 

noise, commotion and fear. I was conscious again, and aware of being back in my 

body in the emergency department cubicle. 

“A doctor said something about a rhythm, and they stopped pumping my chest. I 

coughed and choked, then I was being wheeled out of there and into intensive care. 

“I have no fear of death doc, I’ve almost been there, and it doesn’t look to bad to 

me. Now if you can keep your word, and make sure I don’t suffer while I’m down here, 

I’m pretty sure I’m not going to suffer up there, and whatever is waiting for me, I’m 

sure won’t be too bad.” 

....................................... 

What could I say? I kept my word, he didn’t suffer, and within an all too short few 

weeks he had gone back to visit, on a permanent basis, that place he had almost 

reached before. 

Several times over the years, I (and I am sure, many other doctors) have heard 

vaguely similar stories from patients, but never one in such detail as this. 

No one will ever know till they go there, but it seems that there may well be 

something after life. 

79


Cuckold 

“I have to see a psychiatrist.” 

It’s not the usual response to a doctor’s opening line of “How can I help you?”, but 

that’s the reply I received from this 35 year old builder whom I had never seen 

before. 

Well built, athletic, handsome and worried were my initial impressions as I asked 

why he needed such a referral. 

For some months he had been working on a project about 200km from home. He 

had been driving to the site on a Monday morning, and returning on Saturday 

afternoon, and the well paying job was almost finished. 

On this particular Friday, heavy rain had set in at the job site, making work the 

next day impossible, so rather than spend the night lonely in the on-site van he had 

rented for the duration of the job, he set off down the highway to join his wife. 

Arriving home about 11pm, all was in darkness. He quietly slipped into the 

bedroom, undressed, and attempted to sneak into bed beside his wife. He found 

someone else had beaten him to it! 

Leaping up, he turned on the lights to find his attractive (and formerly well loved) 

wife in bed with another man. All three of them were naked. 

In a rage he grabbed a golf club from a bag in a corner of the bedroom and started 

hitting the interloper as hard as he could. The boy friend was still half asleep, but 

struggled from the bedroom and out the front door under a rain of blows. At the side 

of the house he found his motor bike, struggled to start it, and as the blows and 

stabs from the now broken golf club continued, managed to ride off into the dark 

night, still naked, and without any lights as these had been smashed by the aggrieved 

husband. 

Meanwhile, his wife had been screaming to stop, and when he returned to the 

blood splattered house, she dressed hurriedly, and while still screaming abuse at him, 

packed a few belongings and drove to her mother’s house. 

Calming down very slowly, the builder cleaned himself up, dressed and then tried to 

comprehend what had happened. He vaguely remembered the boy friend’s face from 

somewhere, and after checking some family photos realised that it was the husband 

of his wife’s best girl friend. This was total treachery. 

About two hours after the incident the police arrived to arrest him for aggravated 

assault. The victim had evidently managed to ride to an all night service station 

nearby where he collapsed naked beside the pumps. An ambulance and the police 

were called, and he was taken away to be treated for a fractured skull, broken arm, 

pierced belly and innumerable other cuts and bruises. 

My patient had spent an uncomfortable weekend in the watch house instead of in 

the arms of his wife, and on release his solicitor had advised him to see a psychiatrist 

so that he could plead temporary insanity when the charges went to court. In the 

80


meantime, his wife had taken out a restraining order against him so that he could 

have no further contact with her, and the victim’s wife had visited him in gaol, 

thanked him for putting an end to the affair, and had paid his bail. 

A psychiatric referral was duly arranged so that his crime of passion could be 

appropriately dealt with in court. 

81


Practice Pet 

Pikelets were enjoyed for morning tea every Thursday by all the doctors and 

receptionists at my surgery for almost ten years. They were bought by an elderly 

widow whose family had long since moved away to distant places. Grown 

grandchildren visited occasionally, but her weekly visit to the surgery was the 

highlight of her week. 

She would sit in the waiting room chatting to the staff and any patient who was in 

the mood for conversation. When it was busy she would enjoy watching the bustling 

scene, or read the latest (two month old) Women’s Weekly from the pile of 

magazines. 

Often she would join us in the staff room for morning tea, as we buttered and 

jammed her delicious fresh pikelets. As the medical rep intoned the delights of the 

latest antihypertensive to barely interested doctors, she would have a look of intent 

concentration on her face, as though she was fascinated by every syllable of the 

medical jargon. 

The staff, patients and reps loved her. As I called the next patient in for a 

consultation, they would comment on what a darling that sweet little old lady was, 

who had remembered all about the patient’s last visit two months ago. 

Every four weeks, regular as clockwork, she would actually book an appointment 

(the last before our 10.30am morning tea) to consult with me about her health. 

Other than her minimal dose of digoxin, she took no medication, and was 

extraordinarily well. 

Time and progress caught up with the practice. We moved away from the 

dilapidated strip shopping centre in the back streets to a modern purpose built 

medical centre. It was only 200 metres away, but it was uphill, and doubled the 

distance our "practice pet" had to walk to bring us her pikelets. 

She found the journey in the hot Queensland sun was becoming more difficult as 

time went on, and so the roles were reversed. Once a month I would join her for 

morning tea and pikelets, and after our refreshment and brief consultation, I would 

return to the surgery with a Wedgewood china plate heaped high with pikelets for the 

rest of the staff. 

She had become such an institution at the surgery, that the receptionists would 

drop in to her home for a chat, take her shopping, and bring her up to the surgery 

when a favourite drug rep was due to visit. She always came to our staff Christmas 

party. 

One Sunday afternoon when I was not on call, my daughter interrupted my 

gardening to say a patient was on the phone. Instead of just giving the message of 

who was on call for that weekend, I went in to the phone. 

"Doctor, I don't feel very well". 

82


I recognised the voice instantly. She had never called me at home before, and ten 

minutes later, still in my dirty gardening shorts, I was beside her as she lay on the 

couch in her sitting room. 

She was cold, blue, and dyspnoeic with a rapid, fluttering, weak pulse. Her heart 

failure had suddenly become acute. I indicated that I would call an ambulance and get 

her to hospital as soon as possible, but she gripped my hand as hard as she could and 

said with all the determination and grit she could muster that she wanted to stay 

just where she was, so that she could die while looking at the windows. 

Her long dead husband had been a master craftsman who created magnificent 

stained glass windows. Their home had beautiful pieces of his art framing the sitting 

room window, over the front door, and set into other windows of the house. 

She smiled quietly at me, gazed at the windows for about five minutes, and then 

closed her eyes. Her grip on my hand remained as firm as ever, then a time later (it 

could have been anything from 5 minutes to an hour), the grip gently eased, and at 

the grand age of 93 she quietly passed away. 

It is for people, and stories, such as this that we are all what we are - general 

practitioners. 

83


Chastity Lock 

I just love being a GP! The variety of work is incredible, as you never know (and 

sometimes couldn’t guess in your wildest dreams) what problem is going to come 

through your surgery door with the next patient. 

On this particular day I had the range from the 41 year old who was thrilled to be 

pregnant for the first time to her 23 year old boyfriend, who seemed equally pleased; 

to the old gentleman who was sorry to disturb me as he knew I was very busy, but he 

hadn’t been able to pass urine for twelve hours and was rather uncomfortable with a 

bladder that almost reached his umbilicus. 

But the patient who really took the cake, as the unique and unpredictable 

presentation of the year (decade?, career?) was the twenty something lass who 

came in with her boyfriend requesting a rather personal procedure. She was a new 

patient from the other side of the city, but she had heard a friend mention my name 

after I had done a simple excision, so she had trekked across to see me. 

Her husband was, she explained as her boyfriend listened and held her hand, 

overseas with the Australian Army, and she was missing him, and in particular, she 

missed the erotic pleasures he gave her regularly. So she needed to look after her 

needs in other ways - thus the boyfriend. 

The husband obviously knew his wife and her ways very well though, and had taken 

certain precautions. At a previous time she had undergone piercing of her labia 

majora (for what reason one can only vaguely guess), but immediately before his 

departure, ever loving hubbie had removed her labial rings and replaced them with 

something far more practical. 

She demonstrated her conundrum by hopping onto the couch, removing knickers 

and exposing the problem. A small silver padlock had been slipped through the 

piercings on either side, effectively closing the labia across the opening of the vagina, 

not at all tightly, so a tampon could easily be inserted, but in such a position that 

anything much larger would be very difficult, and possibly painful to manoeuvre into 

position. 

Her frustration was acute. Every stimulation imagined could be experienced, except 

the final one she wanted most. And hubbie held the key! 

My task? Could I please just cut out and repair one side of the pierced labia, then in 

two months, reverse the process again so that he who was away would be none the 

wiser. A most interesting ethical conundrum, let alone a surgical one. 

The scheme was an ingenious one. The absent husband thought he had all bases 

covered, but he had not counted on the desperation of his loved one, who had her 

essential needs (as she put it). 

The boyfriend continued to look on anxiously (eagerly?) as I pondered the dilemma. 

I inspected the lock more carefully. It was a very simple one, and although I was no 

expert, it did not seem that it would take an expert more than a few seconds to open 

84


it. The owner couldn’t use a saw or a bolt cutter on it as the evidence would be 

lacking when the absent loved one returned, let alone the risk of damage to very 

sensitive pieces of anatomy. 

I could have undertaken the procedure, but it would have been painfully 

uncomfortable for several days afterwards, and then the whole process would have 

to be reversed in a couple of months with similar levels of discomfort. 

Looking at a problem from a different angle (no sniggering here please) can often 

give a different solution to a problem. Had they considered a locksmith? 

They looked at each other, and then she said “But he’ll see everything down 

there”. That was certainly true, but I felt that a locksmith would be able to open such 

a simple device in seconds, and at minimal discomfort. They felt the idea had merit, 

and at the risk of embarrassment, but at the saving of discomfort, they decide that it 

was worth a try. It also removed an interesting ethical dilemma from my conscience. 

Obviously the local shopping centre key booth was not appropriate, so I mentioned 

the name of a locksmith in the industrial suburb behind the surgery. 

They left happy with my suggestion, but I just wish I could have been a fly on the 

wall of the locksmith’s shop when the problem was presented to him. The look on his 

face would be really something to behold. Next time he’s in, I just might ask him if 

he’s had any interesting lady customers lately. 

85


Runaway 

The first booked patient of the day was a few minutes late. 

Within seconds of unlocking the surgery door in the morning there was a 

commotion that I could hear at the end of the hall in my consulting room. I walked 

out to find a mother and her twelve year old daughter arguing vociferously, and not 

making much sense. I invited them in to my room to try and sort out the problem. 

The daughter stormed in and sat on the floor in a corner of the room with her 

knees on her chest and her forehead resting on her knees, not looking at anyone, and 

trying to ignore the verbal torrent of despair coming from her mother. 

“She won’t behave, she’s disobedient, she runs away, she won’t help at home, I 

can’t cope with her, she ran away this morning and a neighbour had to bring her 

back”. GPs have heard similar stories before, and as the torrent eased to a mere 

deluge of words I suggested that the mother have a nice cup of tea with the 

receptionist while I had a talk to her daughter. 

She remained defiantly on the floor in the corner, wanting nothing to do with a 

middle aged man whom she was sure would side with her mother. I caught her looking 

at an old map hanging on the surgery wall, so I started talking about it and its 

history. She showed some interest, and when I explained that Australia had originally 

been called Beach (actually pronounced bee-ark) by the 16th. century Dutch 

cartographers, she actually saw the joke, considering our hedonistic sun drenched 

modern culture. 

I had broken the ice and then it came pouring out. She had just moved from 

primary to high school, she had no friends, she was slow at school, her single mother 

was too busy for her, and her younger autistic brother took all her mother’s 

attention. Her mother didn’t trust her, told her to do things, but didn’t ask. Again it 

was fairly typical of a mother not wanting to let go because she felt insecure with no 

husband to help her at home, while the near teenager was testing the limits of what 

she could do in society, and experiencing the stresses of puberty and relationship 

changes. 

Mum was invited back, and some bargains were made. Mum would say please and 

trust her daughter, on the other hand the daughter promised not to run away again. 

Just as the consultation was about to end, the mother’s mobile phone rang and a 

second saga took a dramatic centre stage. 

“I’m sorry about this doctor - I’ll just get rid of them - Hello?” 

I couldn’t hear the other side of the consultation. 

“I’m at the doctors, I’ll call you back” 

A moments silence. 

“The police - what’s happening?” 

86


A confused conversation followed, of which I continued to hear just the one side, 

but the mother was obviously talking to a police officer. I was then handed the 

phone. 

“Doctor speaking”. 

I was then interrogated by the policeman at the other end, was the daughter with 

me, what was my full name and address, could they phone me at the surgery? 

I hung up on the mobile and a few seconds later the receptionist put through the 

same police officer on the surgery phone. Again they confirmed who I was and that 

the daughter was safe, thanked me for my time, and hung up. What on earth was 

going on? The mother explained. 

When she found that her daughter had run away at 7am that morning, she set out 

to search. Her neighbour was just driving off to work, and she explained to him what 

had happened, and asked him to watch out for the girl on his way. 

It so happened that the neighbour did see her, he stopped and tried to persuade 

her to get in his car to be taken back to her mother. She resisted, and getting late 

for work, and frustrated with her obstinacy, he had grabbed the girl, shoved her in his 

car and driven off, back to her home, calling her mother en route on the mobile to let 

her know he had found her daughter. He handed still screaming and abusive daughter 

to mother at home, and headed for work, rather later than planned. 

Half an hour after reaching his office, three policemen barged in and demanded to 

see him. What had he done with the girl? What had he been doing for the last hour? 

A passing motorist had seen the confrontation between the girl and the neighbour, 

had assumed that she was being abducted, took down the car registration number 

and phoned the police. The rest can be imagined. 

The poor man had no idea where she was, but assumed the mother would have 

taken her to school. The school was phoned by the police. No, the girl had not 

arrived. There was no answer at the girl’s home, and in desperation he retrieved the 

mother’s mobile number from his own mobile phone -thus the phone call to the 

surgery. 

The air was cleared, the mother was still upset, the girl actually felt a bit 

embarrassed, arrangements were made for a follow up visit in two weeks, and after 

seeing them out I invited my first booked patient of the day to leave a crowded 

waiting room and come into the consulting room, forty minutes late. 

87


Repairman 

An interesting person with an unusual character, is the phrase that best describes 

Mrs. Mac. She has been a patient of mine for 25 years, and I have seen her through 

the loss of her husband, the diagnosis of maturity onset diabetes, falling downstairs 

and breaking her hip and not being found for 36 hours, the loss of her home and 

independence, her establishment in a retirement village unit and the onset of evolving 

dementia. 

Most people cannot stand her very abrupt and aggressive manner, let alone her 

thick Scottish brogue that she hasn’t lost despite half a life-time in the antipodes. 

After knowing her for so long though, I get along with her reasonably well, giving 

back as much as I get in a friendly verbal banter. On the other hand, the other 

residents, and staff, at the retirement village avoid her as they find her to be 

uncooperative and confrontational. As a result she is, and always has been, a loner. 

When phoning the practice, her manner is usually abrupt in the extreme. “I want 

the doctor” is shouted down the line, with no name or introduction. The staff know 

her so well that they merely acquiesce, and reply that the doctor will come at a 

particular time. The response to this is usually “Can’t he get here sooner!” even if the 

time is in five minutes. With an answer in the negative, she finishes the call with 

words such as “Well I’ll just have to suffer until then I suppose”. 

Last Tuesday was just one of those days. The appointment book looked as though 

a demented ink covered spider had crawled across it, and the entire district had a 

prolonged power failure, which meant that some internal rooms were pitch black, Pap 

smears were done with a pen torch, and the phone system was down. 

Just after the power came back on the phone call came from Mrs. Mac, and the 

usual dialogue followed. She was told that the doctor (none of the five women 

doctors in the practice were qualified in Mrs. Mac’s eyes, so it was always me) would 

call after surgery. 

Dutifully I arrived at the huge 500 unit complex in which she lived, fought my way 

through the multiple security gates and doors that closed after hours, and eventually 

arrived at her room. 

“You’re late!” was the peremptory comment made when I walked in. It was 8pm by 

this stage, as the surgery had run overtime, I was very tired, and rather hungry, my 

last food being an early lunch a 11.30am. 

My brief apology was followed by a query as to how I could help her. 

“Fix the TV”. Please and thank you were not in her vocabulary, but I knew, deep 

down, in her heart of hearts, she really wanted to say those words - I think! 

“Okay, but how can I help you?” 

“Nothing! Just fix the TV!” 

88


She was madly clicking on a remote control that she was pointing at a dead 

television. The power failure had switched off the set, and since the power had 

returned, she couldn’t operate her TV. 

I reached over, clicked on the power switch on the set, and the frantic clicking of 

the remote suddenly had a response. 

“I always knew you were clever, now get out of here so I can watch The Bill”. 

“Did you just call me to turn on your TV?” 

“Well you seem to know everything, and the electrician here won’t come after 

hours, and you’re a lot cheaper too.” 

I was certainly cheaper, as a pensioner she was direct billed to Medicare, and my 

visit cost her absolutely nothing. 

She was watching the screen intently as I asked tongue in cheek if there was 

anything else she wanted fixed. 

“The clock’s wrong”. 

I corrected the time on her electric clock, said a perfunctory goodbye that was not 

acknowledged, and left. 

At last I knew that general practitioners were truly Jacks of all trades. 

89


Oedipus Complex 

The sister, Kay, came in first. I had known her for a decade, she was in her late 40s 

and an attractive, vivacious, intelligent and happily married woman, but she had no 

children. She told her story. 

Her brother, John, had arrived the day before from a major city 1000 km. away. He 

was 42 and she hadn’t seen him since she left home to marry the first man she met 

at age 18. There had been minimal communication between her and her family in the 

intervening 30 years, but now the family needed help, and she was expected to give 

it. 

John had been threatened by thugs and to escape, he had gone into hiding with his 

sister. But this was only the very tip of an extraordinary iceberg. After she briefed 

me, the brother attended for his prolonged consultation a few hours later. 

John had always lived at home, had left school at 17 despite having excellent 

marks, had never worked, never driven a car, never travelled, never flown, had no 

friends and owned nothing. He wore his father’s cast off clothes, and his father had 

now been dead for five years. 

He appeared scruffy and immature, with the social graces of a six year old, but had 

a very intelligent and well read mind. His mother was extremely wealthy, and money 

was no problem, but the mother was possessive and manipulative to the extreme. 

Kay had escaped her clutches, but John had not been successful. After learning from 

her mistakes on Kay, the mother had fine tuned her approach with John, and he was 

now totally unable to cut the apron strings. He was a puppet who danced entirely to 

his mother’s tune, an extreme example of the Oedipus complex. 

He not only lived in the same house as his mother, but slept in the same bed. Their 

intimacy crossed all bounds of decency. But his mother realised that he had further 

needs, and she obviously had fantasies of her own, so she employed prostitutes to 

satisfy his urges, and she watched the action through a peephole. 

One of the prostitutes had realised he was a soft mark, and gradually turned on 

the financial screws, and used emotional as well as physical blackmail to obtain 

steadily larger sums from John and his mother until the demands became just too 

much. When they baulked at her demands, the thugs were called in, and John decided 

it was time to disappear for a while to the safety of his long lost sister. 

Kay was keen to break him away from his mother, and was prepared to take on his 

social education, and gradually return him to functioning normally in society, but after 

42 years of being excessively loved and protected by his mother, the idea of being 

independent in the big wide world was far too frightening for him. 

He came a second time, for a further long discussion of what he wanted and how 

he felt, but he was already starting to decompensate in the absence of his mother, 

and the fiercely independent Kay, who had turned her back on the family fortune to 

90


gain her independence, was as far removed from his mother in achievement and 

attitude as any woman could be. 

After a month, he felt it was safe, and returned to his mother’s arms. But she will 

not live forever, and what will become of him in another decade or so when he is 

finally and ultimately totally alone is something he cannot bear to contemplate. 

91


Degradation 

I had known Helen for over 20 years as a patient. Her husband was a successful 

businessman, she had two delightful daughters and she lived in a magnificent home in 

a desirable suburb. She had everything that she could possibly want, but she 

destroyed it all slowly and surely over many years to become the most degraded 

human being I have ever seen. 

She was fine for months at a time, but then she would start drinking, and drinking 

and drinking. She became aggressive, irresponsible and abusive. 

She travelled the world with her husband on his business trips, but if she started a 

binge, he had to abandon the trip and get her back to the security of her home until 

the episode passed. On one trip when she started drinking in Moscow she was 

arrested for shoplifting. A short stint (short only thanks to the payment of a large 

bribe) in a Russian prison sobered her up faster than any private clinic. 

Private clinics cost her family a fortune. She tried them all - expensive retreats, 

intensive treatment as an inpatient, and regular sessions with Alcoholics Anonymous. 

When she was good she was very very good, but when she was bad she was horrid. 

Her children refused to see her and moved interstate. She lost all her friends, 

became a loner and this only reinforced her poor self esteem and desire to drink more 

to relieve her boredom and frustration. 

Her normal binges lasted a week or two and eventually her husband was able to 

control the situation, but a call from her long suffering husband one morning begging 

for help had me at their home a few hours later. 

I was told that Helen had been drinking for two months non-stop - a five litre cask 

of wine every day, with no food. She was irrational and incontinent, but if the wine 

was withheld she became violent and started convulsing with delirium tremens. 

When I arrived at the large home I was taken to the guest quarters. I saw the most 

degraded human being I have ever encountered. 

Helen was naked, covered in weeping sores and faeces. She was lying on a faeces 

and urine soaked bed, the carpet was similarly affected, and windows and wall plaster 

had been smashed. The room had been stripped of all other furniture. She was 

bedraggled and looked more like a cornered wild animal than a human. The smell was 

overpowering. 

Merely walking into the room my shoes squelched in the urine and faeces. She 

threw faeces at me - fortunately missing - as an indication of her displeasure at 

having her binge interrupted. There was no way in which I could reason with her, and 

being left unattended, she would soon die from either alcohol poisoning, septicaemia 

from her infected sores, or delirium tremens if her alcohol was ceased. She 

desperately needed hospitalisation. 

I hosed my shoes in the garden as I left. 

92


To add to the complications it was 6pm on 23 December when I saw her, and at 

Christmas time, none of the normal services seem to work properly. 

Christmas Eve morning I was arranging the documents to have her regulated and 

forcibly removed to a “place of safety” (ie. a hospital). The documents signed, 

hospitals notified, ambulances, police and mental health workers coordinated and that 

afternoon the team swung into action, dressed in gowns, masks, boots and caps to 

protect themselves. 

Helen did her best to dissuade them from their intended purpose, but she was 

wrapped in a sheet and bundled into an ambulance to be taken away for a thorough 

cleaning, detoxification and treatment of her sores. 

She came to see me again in the surgery three weeks after her admission, and the 

transformation was remarkable. She was still very nervous and anxious, but dressed 

in a fashionable suit, appropriate make-up and she was ready to cooperate (yet 

again) with any treatment I recommended. 

The big question was, how long would it be before her next bender, and would she 

survive it? 

93


The Erotic Dreams of a 

Menopausal Housewife 

“It’s those pills doctor, you’ve got to do something about them. My husband’s 

getting worn out!” 

Mrs. C had always been an outgoing, vivacious, no nonsense type of person who 

came very quickly to the point. Her point was her dreams. 

She had originally presented with symptoms of the menopause - hot flushes, 

irregular periods, dry vagina and poor libido. In her early fifties, her symptoms were 

not unusual, and she was started on the normal dose of hormone replacement 

therapy (HRT). The Americans tout these pills containing oestrogen and 

progesterone (the female hormones) as the pill of youth, but that normally is a slight 

exaggeration. 

HRT will certainly slow the aging process by maintaining skin elasticity (therefore 

fewer wrinkles), preventing breast sag, lubricating the vagina, strengthening bones, 

and if desired, returning a woman’s regular periods, but old age eventually catches all 

of us. 

The husbands of these women are frequently surprised to find that their wives 

develop a renewed interest in intimate marital relationships, at a time in life when 

they had almost given up all hope of any further activity. Libido (sexual desire) is 

both a state of mind and a level of hormones. Most women are more interested in sex 

in the middle of the month at the time of ovulation, but when the hormones 

disappear with menopause, so may the libido. 

Mrs. C’s dreams were erotic. Her oestrogen pills were having not only their normal 

physical effects, but were giving her very vivid, and enjoyably salacious dreams. 

The stories spilled out of her as she sat beside my desk in the surgery. 

The Mongol hordes had surrounded the nomadic encampment of her family. She (in 

her dream) was a young, beautiful, virginal daughter of the tribal headman. After a 

prolonged and valiant battle, in which she played a significant part lassoing the legs 

of the charging Mongol horses to make them fall, her family and friends were 

slaughtered around her, and she was carried off as a prize for the handsome, virile 

son of Genghis Khan. 

She was swept up onto the back of a horse, and her captor galloped away with her 

across the vast plain until the Prince’s encampment came into view. She was taken to 

his yurt, flung through the door, and landed in a huge pile of luxurious silks and furs 

that covered the floor of the yurt, and decorated its walls. 

The prince strode into the tent, bare to the waist, his muscled chest glistened with 

sweat after the exertion of his ride. He undressed her with his eyes, and then ordered 

her to prepare herself for him. Her desire for him was as great as his was for her. She 

nestled into the furs and waited for him to penetrate her. 

94


Then she woke up, and such was her ardour that she had to have someone, so her 

husband was wakened, and told in no uncertain terms to honour her with his body. 

This was all related in a very matter of fact way, with barely a break for breath, as 

a follow on to the sentence that starts this story. 

As Mrs. C’s speech rate slowed to indicate the end of her tale, I broke in to ask her 

if she felt her hormone tablets were having any other effects. 

“No doctor, just these extraordinary dreams. I’ve not enjoyed dreaming so much 

for years”. 

She launched into another dream. 

This time she was a Hell’s Angels bikie’s moll. Dressed in skin tight leather, she 

clung to him on the back of a Harley Davison as they swept across the country side 

at death defying speeds, terrorising other motorists as they travelled, and shop 

keepers wherever they stopped. The vibrations of the bike sent thrills up her spine, 

she clasped herself as closely as possible to her man, and thrilled to the adrenalin of 

speed. 

At any time, or place, he would have his way with her, and she always responded 

eagerly to keep him pleased. But he became too pleased, and boasted of her sexual 

prowess to the others in the gang. This raised the interest of their leader, who 

wandered over to give her a close inspection. This inspection became quite detailed 

95


as he brutally unzipped the front of her leather jacket, ripped the flimsy blouse she 

wore underneath, and examined her feminine attributes. This naturally angered her 

current man, and a challenge ensued. 

She was seated with her back to a tree, and in her semi naked state, watched the 

two bikies duel over her with chains and knives. The gang leader was victorious, and 

grabbing her around the waist, threw her over his machine, and penetrated her in 

front of the assembled gang to demonstrate his dominance and possession. 

“And doctor, just as I was about to climax, I woke up again, and my poor husband, 

he just didn’t know what had come over me. Two nights running was almost too 

much for him”. 

It was tempting to leave her on the tablets to hear what further tales would be 

forthcoming, but I decided she was right, her husband’s health had to come first, and 

to avoid him succumbing to total exhaustion, heart failure and shock, the dosage of 

her oestrogen was lowered just a little bit - but not too much! 

© Warwick Carter 

www.medwords.com.au 

96


Dr. Warwick Carter a medical practitioner based in Brisbane, Australia 

and holds a post as an Associate Professor in the School of Health Sciences and Medicine 

at Bond University in Queensland. 

He has written 24 books on medical topics, 

as well as over 3000 magazine and newspaper articles. 

97

MW_Secret_files/Erotic Dreams.pdf - Medwords.com.au

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?