International
Beit CURE International Hospital in Blantyre.
Standing on the shoulders of giants Reflections on eight years in Malawi John Cashman
“Are you serious? Have you really thought about this? Is this fair on your family?”
John Cashman was an undergraduate at Southampton University Medical School and trained in Wessex deanery as a registrar. He worked as a Consultant in Bath Royal United Hospital and as a paediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children prior to spending eight years in Malawi with CURE International. John now works in Sheffield Children’s Hospital, is an Examiner for JCIE and Board member of BSCOS. 36 | JTO | Volume 09 | Issue 01 | March 2021 | boa.ac.uk
These were some of the encouraging comments shared with me by well-meaning friends when I first mooted the thought of leaving the UK to work as a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon with a charity in one of the poorest countries of the world.
I
was about to complete my first five years as a consultant in Bristol Children’s Hospital and everything was going well; a young family, excellent work colleagues whom I counted fortunate to also be my good friends, a job I enjoyed and even a fun cycle to work each day. Then an email arrived. A charitable children’s hospital in Malawi were looking for a fellowship trained children’s orthopaedic surgeon to help run the only hospital of its type in that region of Africa. It was a difficult decision. I had visited Malawi as registrar mid-training when I had travelled to see Professor Chris Lavy, who was then one
of two orthopaedic surgeons in a country of 13 million people. I had arrived a young man who was struggling with the thought of a life spent doing adult arthroplasty in the UK. I left after nearly three months, having trod in the footsteps of David Livingstone with the naive enthusiasm modelled on Indiana Jones and impassioned with the thought of specialising in children’s orthopaedics. I then determined to become a consultant in the UK in paediatric orthopaedics, but to always be open to returning to a low income country if there was ever a specific need and I was invited. Now, out the blue, these preconditions had been met in one short email.
