Dr. J.J. and Dr. Gareth with their Advanced Trauma Texts.
“Is there a Doctor in the house?”
When it comes to our hostel. the answer to the above question is “yes there is, more often than not”.
We get a whole cross section of society who choose to stay in hostels while traveling. As well as your average youthful backpacker, we get a lot of professionals. We have had the pleasure of hosting Doctors, Lawyers and even a few Indian Chiefs.
We just conducted a small poll among Canadiana staff members and tried to recall how many medical doctors had been guests at the hostel over the past year.
Including the two physicians from the UK in residence right now, as close as we can recall, at least nine.
These included an Orthopedic Surgeon from England; a Plastic Surgeon from New York; a (female) Neurosurgeon from Thailand; a (female) Anesthesiologist from Germany; a Radiologist from Germany; and a General Practitioner from Brazil.
These figures don’t take into account the number of Medical Students we get; they’re too numerous to count!
The two medicos we have in residence at the moment are from the UK. One is a resident in Pediatrics and the other is an medical officer with the famed Royal Marines.
They have come to Toronto to take part in an intensive Trauma course at a Toronto Hospital because it’s a required course for all physicians working Emergency Rooms in the United Kingdom.
J. J., a Royal Marine Surgeon Lieutenant (soon to be Lt. Commander) has just returned from Johannesburg, South Africa where he elected to spend three months in an Emergency Ward of one of the most violent and dangerous cities in the world. There he saw gunshot and knife wounds – lots of them!
His colleague Gareth is completing his specialty in Pediatrics which, hopefully, will see less trauma than J.J. who will soon deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Anyhow, if you visit our hostel and wonder if there is a Doctor in the house; chances are, there is at least one.