SPEAKER_01 0:00

This episode of Why Did I Become a Doctor is brought to you in partnership with Medical Brief, South Africa's leading daily healthcare news service. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. Subscribe free at medicalbrief.co.za forward slash subscribe. Yuck, I don't know you you know me. We grew up together, right? Mm-hmm. And you probably I don't know if you know this about me, but when I was growing up, I could never I always thought of myself as like a a city person. Like I want to be in a big town. I'll never move to the small town country life type of thing, right? You want me to agree, yeah. I mean do you agree? I don't know, you don't know. Kind of because you mean you're a farm talking about. Yeah. I mean I was born in a farm, but uh but moved to the city. But all that changed when I moved to Stanerton to do my comserve and then eventually work in the town. Um Stanerton converted me into a small town person. Like I could see myself going back and living. I mean, could you would you, yeah? Would you ever live in a small town? Yes, that's what I aspire to every day. Is that your dream? Uh I feel very imposter syndrome, yeah, in Joe Butt. So our next guest is something of um he won't he won't admit to this, but I'll tell you, he's a bit of a like a local legend in the in the community of Standerton, which is where I worked. Um, Dr. Eric Lowe. Doc, welcome. Thanks, Annika. Uh I've never done this before, but I I'm gonna start by reading out some messages about you, Dr. Lowe. I hope it doesn't embarrass you, but I'm just gonna do it. I conspired with your wife who was Mike Bully uh to get some messages. So I'm just gonna read only two. Okay. So you bear with us, but I want to get give the audience a sense. Oh, right. Yeah. So somebody said, Today I'd like to take a moment to praise someone who has played a very special role in my family's life, my doctor. He has been part of our journey for many years, from delivering my youngest sibling to delivering my youngest child. He has been through some of the most important and emotional moments of our lives. That is something truly rare and meaningful. Not many people can say that one doctor has cared for two generations in their family. What makes him so special is not only his skill and professionalism, but also his kindness, patience, and calm presence. In moments of fear and uncertainty, he brings reassurance. In moments of joy, he shares in our happiness. He treats not just patients but people with dignity, compassion, and genuine care. A doctor like him does more than heal physically. He gives comfort, hope, and confidence. He makes difficult times easier and happy times even more memorable. I'm deeply grateful for everything he has done for my family and for me personally. And truly, Doc, I feel better when I see you. That's from Aisha Bibi Moedin. And then one more one more message, Dr. Lowe. It says, Dr. Eric Lowe certainly is one of a very special kind of breed of medical doctors. He commits to each and every patient with a certain kind of wit and kindness, as well as extreme knowledgeability and intellectualism. Procedures and operations are skillfully and expertly performed either at his consulting rooms or at the local hospital himself. His compassion for the sick inspires him to make house calls and work long hours. Dr. Eric treats all patients with utmost professionalism and a tender heart and ear. He is a jewel in our small community, one on whom we can always rely. The Standerton community is extremely privileged with you as our doctor. Thank you, Dr. Eric Lowe. And that's from Ilna Pretorius. So, Dr. Lowe, welcome. Thanks a lot. Um I can I can attest to that. I mean, Dr. Lowe was my doctor, and he sorted me out with a couple of things that even specialists here in Joe Burg and Pretoria like couldn't do. Uh I got that feeling when I was treated with you. So I'm privileged to have you on, and thank you for, you know, at least making the trip all the way and uh accepting our invitation, Dr. Lowe.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Thanks for the invitation. Yeah. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

So, Doc, where do you come from? Well, I mean, are you standard in born and bred or?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

No, actually, um I was born um in the goldfields in Virginia, the free state. Okay. So my um and I actually grew up in and I left at home. The only own that I knew was from birth till the days when I went to varsity. So my dad was working on the mines, he was an artisan. Um, and but you know, from as long as I can remember, I wanted to become a doctor. So um I think my my dad played a role in that. I think if he had the opportunities, he probably would have also wanted to study medicine. Um, but those days the guys had hard times and there wasn't money and opportunities to study. So what he did was um I think he sort of uh sew a seed by always telling me about stuff in medicine, like Robert Koch and TB and the first R transplant. And I think that sort of, you know, changes your epigenetics. I I like the word epigenetics. If you from small time can change someone's epigenetics, they start off doing only that stuff that that gene, epigene, will tend you to do. Changes your DNA almost. No, not your DNA conditioning. Outside the DNA. All right. Like for example, if you if you if you teach your kids from small time, listen, I'm just gonna let you eat vegetables and broccoli and stuff, uh, and not chips and sweets and stuff, and you do it for long enough, the body will only crave for those healthy stuff because you've changed that epigenetics. So I did that experiment with my daughter, and you know, even at at birthday parties when she was a small girl, when they eat chips and sweets and stuff, she would uh she wouldn't eat it. She would wait for stuff like vegetables or broccoli or stuff like that. But I mean, um that is just a bit of the epigenetics. So what I think is my my my head started to think towards medicine and stuff. When I was still in primary school, you know, my my my mother had a hard time keeping my room civilized and clean because I dissected birds and rats and mice and I stuffed animals up and you know for what to learn or? I I was just I was just fascinated by what's going on inside here and the outlooks inside this animal and so um uh insects and all those things. And then, you know, when you reach um in those days it was standard five, nowadays it's grade seven, you had to fill in a little form. So what do you want to do one day? What are your aspirations for one day? And even on that form and in standard five or grade seven, I wrote, I wanted to be a doctor. So um, say time goes by, and then you know, you had to fill in forms and apply for different uh well, I decided let me just apply at all the universities. And if I say also Stalin was um Free State and Pretoria, uh, because it's a selection process and it doesn't mean you're gonna end up being selected. So um luckily I got selected at all the universities, but the other thing was money to study. And my dad told me, you know, he said, you know, if if you if you're not gonna get a bursary, study hard enough to get a bursary, then uh it's gonna be off the table. You know, there's no money for studies then. So what year was this, Doc Sorry? That was in uh okay, my trick year was 79. So um 78 already, you had to sort of started doing your forms of stuff and your selections. And so I started, um because my dad worked on the mines, there was this one bursary that the Chamber of Minds gave out those days. And what makes that specific bursary very special is that you never had to work back. They give you that bursary. There was only one condition. You couldn't fail. As soon as you fail one year, the bursary will be gone. So um, and luckily I got the bursary, so then I went to Varsity and I decided, I think I was a bit guided there by my uh GP those days. Um and you know, even when I I actually later on I did some practical work at his practice, but I went to him and and I asked him what what would he suggest? Where where should I go and study? And he said no, probably because he was from Pretoria. He said, no, he goes to you must rather go to the University of Pretoria. So I went there. I think there's nothing wrong with the other universities, um, but I was happy there. It was a good good learning curve. Um, you know, those days were different than nowadays. And if I say different, I mean, you know, if you look at how they train guys nowadays, it's definitely different. There's a change in the method of treat of uh learning. Um so I went there and I um I started studying at at the University of Pretoria. I I didn't go to um a hostel. I actually my dad said no, I should rather just focus on my work at that stage because there was this fear of you know losing the bursary and you don't want to do that by if you're playing playing too much around and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

So did your dad think you might be playing around too much there?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

No, he didn't. He was just saying, you know, you also had this abnormal fears of things like um you shouldn't lose focus. Okay. You shouldn't uh, you know, go and and party too much and and forget about your studies, because if you're gonna l uh if you're gonna fail, you're gonna lose your birth. And he's also vicariously living his dream through you. I think that's what happened, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

But this is what I don't want to get to university yet, Doc. I want to I I want to dig in deeper on the on the childhood first. Because you said he planted the seed, right? And probably changed your epige epigenetics. What do you think made him do that? Did he see something in you, or was it maybe his dream?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Or I think it was sort of his dream. You know, because he was an artist, and so he fixed, you know, he was a he was a um a fitter and turner and he did lots of work, and even at the mine hospital. But I know he told me that he for many hours he stood at the window of the theater and just watched him doing the operation. So I think it was sort of a dream of himself, you say. But and and he I think he sort of tried to motivate me um to go into that direction. We are two, I've got a younger brother, two years younger than me. We only had two kids. But also, I must say, in my brother's case, we never had an interest uh in medicine, he tried to motivate my brother again into engineering. And my brother became a mechanical engineer. Um and because he worked with engineers and he could see what they do and what they did, and that it was a step higher than the artwork that he needed to do. Because he was actually, you know, he was a very disciplined man, but he was, I must say it, we we didn't connect so so good as I thought we should, because um, because of his harshness and his disciplined systems, and sometimes you break down that bond of dad, son, you know. Um but isn't it that generation, maybe? They were hard, these people, you know. My but not my mother. My mother was different, you know. So um, but my dad, you know, you you had to fix things, and if you if you if if you don't stick to what he says, there's gonna be things to to account for, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

And um my dad tells me similar stories about his old man, and I get that's like a generational thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

It is a generational thing. And you know what I what what they what they tend to do is they go back in their own childhood. They, you know, you had a very hard time, you know, they lost their farm and stuff, and you know, now all the hardship that you went through, and I heard a lot about it when I grew up, because he he sort of replayed it and and he told me again and again, and it was so he struggled so much. And and I thought later on, maybe, you know, you should stop struggling now and just give me a chance to evolve on my own now. Because otherwise he pulls me into his history of art, artship, you understand. So what I did then is um, you know, even at, you know, you said let's get back to to the school days, and even at school, you know, um, and this will sound a bit crazy, but that's exactly what happened. Those days there were no TVs. Only I think TVs only came to the fore when I was grade, probably grade eight, grade seven, grade eight.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Um that's like 75, 74.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

You know, and then all these, and that was something like, you know, from Mars was telephone. Everyone wants to watch the screen, and then the the shows comes up and Dallas and all those things. You know, he was, and because you know, now I need to study, but I was disciplined, I did study. Um, and but he told he will tell you, even in in high school, in secondary school, he told me, listen, go and study. You're not gonna watch any TV tonight. You know, I'm I'm almost a metric. Yeah. And that was, if he says that's what you're gonna do, that's what you're gonna do. So um I thought it was a bit harsh, but you know, later on, and we had our differences. Yeah. Because, you know, as you grow up and you become an adolescent, you start thinking differently. You become a bit of a rebel, you know, and you say, No, I do not agree with what he says now. I don't agree with his vision for the future, because he had weird visions about the future, should do that and this, and I said, No, it's not gonna work for me. So, um Did you play any sport or anything like that? Yeah, I did. Yeah. I did. You know, I I you know, in primary school we did a lot of stuff, athletics and and um uh rugby and tennis and secondary school, um athletics and and uh tennis a lot.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

And Virginia, I mean, is that is it a mining town or what is it? It's a mining town. So what are the professionals that you're exposed to in that kind of uh town? Like is it does it have lawyers and engineers?

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah, no, yeah, it's like uh it's like Stanerton almost, you know. They have they have but I would I would say the core of the of the town evolves and revolves around um gold, the gold industry. So mining. So, you know, engineers a lot, and and um about doctors, there were good GPs and doctors there, and a lot of lawyers, and not a lot, but I mean lawyers for the for the community. So it was actually a nice town, you know. Is it near Bethlehem? No, it's about uh probably two, two and a half hours from Bethlehem. Okay, you know, it's close to Wellcome.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

It's about 11 kilometers from Wellcome, which is another uh a big town in our days.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

So um We had a we had a guest recently on from us another small town, excuse me. And one of the things I said was that uh what I've noticed with small towns in South Africa is that all of them have three things in common. It's a a KFC, a bottle store, and a church. Yeah. I'm guessing Virginia had all of the all the three of their bottles.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Churches you will find in all c on all towns in this country. Yes. Definitely. Was it an important body? It was definitely a bottle store. But I don't think there were KFCs. So then you moved to s to Pretoria, you say, to s you have to move. Yeah, yeah. How did that work? You see, my you know, like I say, my dad was a was a guy with um strict rules and stuff, and he he hated it to to drive into cities. Because the first time I that I actually um went to Pretoria those days was that day that I went for a uh for for a bursary um application. So what he did, my dad was he said to me, and those days there were steam steam trains.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

So it's not electrical stuff, it was steam. He said to me, Here's a map. Here's a map. And you've got you've got a you've got an appointment with uh uh with the uh chamber of minds in in Jobick and with Barlerand. Two appointments for busy applications because we we had to go all the way now to see what we will get. So he put me on the train in Virginia and there I go. So, and you know, you'll broad your park. That is where the train station was. So it was different those days. I stopped there and then I had the map and I I walked all the way to Witz University, because the first the first um appointment was there. The interview.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

So you you you navigating with the map, because you you don't know where Witz is, right? How do you get around your people?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Because there were no cell phones or no GPSs or stuff like that. There were only maps, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Were you not in afraid or intimidated or scared or sounds exciting?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

I was a bit, you know, and now in now I'm first time in a big city. Yeah. I wasn't there before in Java. Even in uh it was also my first time at Pretoria. So, because he decided no, he's not gonna drive there. I need to go and look it out myself. So um I did uh the interviews, but I I feel a bit out of place, of course. I'm yeah, I'm here from from a rural town, and now I'm here in the big city amongst all these other blokes that were that that came there for for interviews.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Did you not want to just tell him, Dad, can't you just come with me? Like, did you not want to say that? Or was it just he tells you and he tells you and you do what he says, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

That's why and that's how it was. And actually I I think it's better because I think he sort of his vibe can can influence me. And I thought, you know, it might be better if I just functioned economically and think for myself. I get you. So and then I came back and um What was that like? Uh the the the trip to Joburg and all that stuff. The train stuff was fine. Yeah. Yeah, the train was no issue for me. And when I when I got back, and now I I got the bursary eventually. They said, you know, you got the chamber of minds bursary, all right? So now I needed to go and find um a place to live in Pretoria. So now I I I I had to go through the same exercise again. He said to me, take a map, go there, and find a place to stay. 17-year-old, 18-year-old. Yeah, I was 17 in Madrid, yeah. So so we went there, but this time I asked a buddy of mine, who also was with uh he was with me in school. He's actually nowadays uh anesitist in Kimberling. So I said to him, just just come with me and let's do this together. So then we arrived here in Pretoria, down there in Fur Tracker Road, first cheapest hotel that we could get, we checked in there. It looks a bit scaly, I must say, you know, guys look checking you out and stuff. We think scaly even in those days. I thought everyone was like, I love it. You get bad places always also in those days. So um so what I did is I um we we checked in there and I told him, listen, what I suggest we do is we take this map now. And I've got a few ideas of places that I've seen in the newspaper that in those days are advertised in newspapers, so there's probab a possibility of accommodation. So we set off one morning and we started walking. Later on, you know, uh quite a few months later on. Um when I was there, I I went with one guy and we measured that route that we walked that day. So um we walked from Fuhrtracker to the main campus of of Turkis. And then obviously I went to the different places and we walked over the mountain to Fasino, and then this friend of mine said, Listen, now I had enough. I'm not gonna walk another step. So I said, let's take the bus back lead. Because he was really he had enough. So the initiatives, they like to sit in. And we walked actually twenty five kilometers. That's good. I know Pretoria. Yeah, so it's it's quite a distance that we walked. And that mountain over good. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got some Inskeman Street, I got I got. uh a place that I thought you know this is quite alright and um I I s m uh spoke to the chapter and he said no he's got a room for me so then my dad when I had it to when I had to check in uh that before university starts um he he organized with a guy to take us there to drive us there so then he went along with me so we went to to the to that um uh hostel and he dropped me off there and that was it you know so he said alright now from you're on your own and your mom couldn't come with uh no she didn't come she greeted me there my my mother was you know she was actually the supportive one she she could understand me she could uh read the hardship and the difficult stuff and she will go out of her way just to help you know mothers are like that yeah the mother has you know she was the one that even in school that would help me with with um papers and uh uh preparation for tests and stuff like that did she cry when you were leaving all yes definitely yeah she did she while she is uh you know the tears come very easily from her side always you know it's been like that and you um I didn't cry I think maybe just to protect her sort of yeah rather she would have cried more so um so I went and actually it was a good learning curve I actually enjoyed it there it was it was good I had um I took my bicycle that I had at school I decided you know let's do the trip from Skuman which is close to I would say probably four four and a half kilok kilometers to the campus so that's what I did but then my dad in my second year he he actually did something good for me he said to me listen I'm gonna buy you a Bucky now so and he bought me a bucky um that's without you even asking yeah with without even asking I thought you know this is great um and those days a Dutch and 1400 so and that that was my it's a present was my present and I used that bucket till the day I went to um for my husband ship in Grundstadt after I qualified I still drove the same bucket um but that was a good thing for me because now I could have you know I I didn't go home a lot I never did my holidays I did um how long did it take to get from Pretoria to about four hours. Yeah okay but I mean you know sometimes um there was not really a a reason for me to go because I I had to study and it was good to see my mum again and my dad but you know the only thing that interested him at that stage you know are you doing well are you are you passing your exams stuff like that yeah so but my mother was the true one that really felt for you. Yeah connected like connected feeling um I was and you know there's no cell phones there were only tiki boxes those days.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

So she was the nurturer and he was the provider. Yeah yeah absolutely what's a tiki box for the because we've got young listeners.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah no you would we didn't know you know those days uh uh a telephone where you put money in to find people called it a tiki box like a phone boot like a not a card even those days you had to clean coins and the tiki is the name of the coin right tiki is uh it's that is just uh a name because tikkies were before my time was it was a coin yeah and but then the the the name evolved like calling it a tiki box or a coin box and then you phone you know the only reason why I know what a tiki is is because our headmaster was an elderly guy in in primary school and I used to play cricket and he used to say when you're bowling the ball put it on the tiki meaning like if you can put a coin yeah that's a very small coin it is a very small yeah yeah so um but you know there's a lot of good you know if you look at social media but but in those days with no social media there was also very good stuff you know I think you know you you didn't you you you you went out of your way to um to to acquire knowledge and you go to a library you look at books and you um it's not like now that you sit on your phone and everything is in front of you which is very easy um but on the other hand this is a huge advantage that we sit with now like AI and all these stuff that I've I've been using that also in my work now so that that is really great stuff but that was still a very good time without all those um uh media uh abilities that uh that we have today to not be in the those do you know a guy named Brian Johnson by any chance he's he he's a guy that's expec he his goal is to live forever.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

So he experiments he he takes blood on a regular basis all bodily fluids and he's checks and he's basically he's trying to optimize to live as long as possible. And one of the things he's doing is recently he tweeted about it like two days ago is he's going on a social media fast because he feels like social media is actually it's one of those things that are contributing to to his death and he said when he when he he he was off it for 48 hours and he felt so much better and now he's doing a week fast.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

So the thing you're saying about social media having the positives and negatives I totally understand it then yeah actually I now that you mentioned it I can just tell you something that I attended um every year I'm going to a symposium um it's a psychiatric uh symposium but there's also some neurological um lectures and stuff like that and there was a lecture that they gave about um cell phones um and uh cell phones more in kids and the time that they've been exposed to cell phones which is actually at this point in time if you look at a kit under 12 years they're talking about approximately eight hours a day exposure to cell phones which is if you if you if you just imagine what you can do in eight hours but what this guy said who gave the lecture was that the same damage that you get um due to addiction say to cocaine or urine the same the same changes takes place in your brain um when you get addicted to cell phones and um computer games and stuff like that which is actually like this what you just mentioned now you know I think it can contribute to bad stuff as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

It's all those what's the dopamine hits that you get dopamines and also the frequency of like what your the screen's emitting that has of like an effect on your optic now. Yeah. Yeah it's it's interesting. So Pretoria now what's it like from coming from a small town to big city how did you adapt?

SPEAKER_00 29:33

What is med school like yeah I I I actually um you know your first year is at the main campus. Yeah in Hatfield Yeah yeah in Hatfield but then the second year you go down to in those days it was H.A. Favut hospital Steve Pico nowadays um and then there was the the rest of the medical campus was there. So it was the first year I was still asking myself you know when um when will I reach the stage where I get to work with patients and stuff because in those years we still did um okay while it is important physics and chemistry and physiology and but then plants. Yes you know I thought plants is not botany botany is not part of of medicine you know why do I need to know how this plant and that plant works but it's out of the the curriculum now you know which is good because it's useless to do that. So then I went to the BMW sciences stands for buses basic medical vietnam basic medical science sciences yeah so um and that's where we did um our um dissections yeah and you were looking forward to that since you were kids that was great stuff I I like I do do love anatomy that's good for me. So um and just to you know uh dissection yeah see how the body looks and how it works and that what that was good. That's actually where I met my wife also um because she did dentistry and then she also she dissected on the same cadaver that that I is dissected on. So um that's with the connection with nurture love at first touch love at first dissection yeah so uh different ends of the body um no you know I I adapt it actually easily to to the city life you know there there was one guy living with me he was a farmer he studied engineering um and we lived in the same um hostel and but he was freaked out you know this guy's from from the Northern Cape they you know there's nothing there yeah and now he must drive or he must cycle to to main campus you know in the traffic with his bicycle and he freaked out he was like going like Lawrence on a bicycle just to reach the campus on the other side and I thought you know for him it was difficult because um I mean he he he grew up on a farm he was on the farm the whole time I was at least in a in a in a town you know yeah but um I I adjusted easily um and you know um I I made a good friend uh and he helped me a lot he was from Pretoria we we connected in my first year and his dad used to be the pharmacist of the Bromberg pharmacy uh Bronnberg um is a specific pharmacy uh in sunny side it was actually a very good upmarket those days you know now it's changed completely um and his whole family his mother his his mother passed away two weeks ago 98 um but he lives he moved to Canada years ago he's been in Canada like 20 years or so and he came for the funeral he came this side but they helped me a lot of you know to support me um you know they invited me for visits and stuff and that was that was a good thing what's his name I mean uh Donna Buerta Buerta yeah Donna Buerta he's a doctor now in Canada for a while he's been there for more than 20 years so Donna when I you know when I after my uh internship I went to in those days the homelands you know maybe you don't even know the homeland yeah please explain for us yeah the homelands those days the government um created homelands um that can govern themselves which was not a very successful project so Kongwanui was this one homeland close to the border of Swaziland and they had three big hospitals um Tembo and Chongwe and Mbulini so Dana worked at at Tembo and I worked at umbuleni hospital and it was during I it was during the the Angolan War so I was just up at on the border and I came back and I was still in the service of the military so I did some of the clinics on the border of Swaziland. So um they gave me a Boki and and I did all those clinics and I did the Sikh Bay also at Amsterdam. It was a military base there as well but this is all in Pumalanga now it's all in Pumalanga but I was at that stage I was appointed as a medical officer at Mbelleni Hospital. So I worked for the hospital but I also had some chores to do for the military so clinics and SIGPA and stuff like that. And my wife also got a job at at Mbellene Hospital as a dentist but Donna was a timber so Donna worked on and I and then there's a there was a girl that started working there and I was a senior medical officer and she only started there and she actually came from Stanerton her mother my brother is still a farmer at Stan you know he's still farming at Stanerton and I introduced her to Donna said Donna is a young girl yeah and it wasn't I I don't even think it was a year and I got married and um I've got two kids and she's also a doctor and then I moved to Canada and and I and I was wondering why did Donna move to Canada he was for a short time a general practitioner in Bod Place. Okay but and then he went to to Nelspread but then he left the private sector and he he worked at Rob Ferrara Hospital as a and he was a good doctor really he was a good you know we trained together we worked together in Kronstadt where I did my my my internship my husband and Robbs is is uh if I I I also worked at Robbs for some time that's like um have you ever been to Robbs?

SPEAKER_01 36:40

It's like the private most private you can get in the public sector in my opinion. It's very well run. It's a good looking hospital.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Yeah and if they if you've got good skills you can you can do a lot of stuff there then a lot of work and operations but then one day and that was just when you know when HIV emerges um he's he's I think he he said um when I phoned his mom one day she said no he already immigrated sure just decided not even to go and look he's just gonna move to Canada and it was I think one of his his um things that frightened him was the HIV situation which tends to be not a big issue at all now. Yeah um and then he moved there he said he wants a better life now if Donna watch this now one day he probably will criticize me now but but you know now I'm asking myself you know if you're looking for a better life because I'm I'm really happy where I'm working and you know after all these years I'm still happy working there but if you if you're looking for a better life his wife was working in this town more I think it's more than it's a name she was working at a hospital or a clinic there but he worked in the north of Canada so every Monday he flew flew out to the north stayed there seeing patients there and and then he he came back to his place um on Fridays. So that's the norm eh I've got a few friends I was about to say I've got a friend who's uh anaesthetist doing exactly the same thing his wife's a psychiatrist so he goes one town and then they put you in a deeper but now you look at this and you say listen but Monday to Friday I haven't been at that for years I haven't seen my kids in in that period you know they grew up I I saw you only saw them on weekends and they're out of their house now depends who you ask for some people that might be a perk you know that sounds like it's no I'm just defending Donna in that you know we just get him on tell him you must come on and give his side of the story no what I mean now is if you look at you know you want to improve your life for yourself and your family but now you don't see your kids growing up and you and you know for me I think if you can keep your kids at at home as long as you can that that is the best because if they're gone they're gone. Yeah then there's no other time for connections there. I agree with you that's how I feel also so but I mean everyone's got his own choices to make so for me in retrospect because I had also um you know other friend he worked about four or five years in Canada in a practice and he's now in um back in his practice in um Momersbury. So that's Western Cape right that's Western Cape and years ago I phoned him up and I said listen because I've got this so many um guys asking me you know why are you not going to Canada or Australia or somewhere and I wanted to hear his opinion. Do they still ask you that these days? No on yeah and then he said to me listen I've been there and there's no way that I will go back you know this is where I want to be I want to practice here I want to stay here I want to I this is my country there is there's different other connections not only just medicine you know so it's uh it's a culture thing maybe also did you ever think of emigrating? To immigrate yeah and those those days I did yeah uh because of you know all these friends of mine going and I thought you know but I'm happy in my practice my kids are happy why should I disturb everything and go now and I'm I'm 100% sure I did the correct decision then because you know the kids were happy in Stanerton. Actually my son at though in those days he said to me Dad will they will they build a university in Stanerton I want to just stay here so and then they were still small like and you know now he's living here in the city also but I mean I think I made the right correct decision and um I after all these years looking at what I did if you ask me would I probably do the same again I think yes I will it it makes me good uh feel good to hear that because I've also had gotten pressure from people close to me to say think of going even now 2025 2024 2026 yeah think of going and I don't want to go but I always ask myself am I being is it is it because I'm just comfortable I don't want to get out of my comfort zone but I think you were touch you were about to touch on it before I interrupted you.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

I mean I feel like there's a connection it's more than just your profession and your work.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Yeah it's your community it's your people it's and it's the weather and stuff yeah that's right. So many things if I had to plug my vehicle in uh every time in winter when it's minus 27 degrees Celsius the I don't care how much how well they equip their houses and stuff it's still not you know I I find it's still hard these days in Stanerton in the winter. It's my insert challenge, you know so I don't want to sit up there in the snow. Snow is nice and fine for the first week and then it becomes really an issue. Now you have to clean up your pathway in front of the garage to get your car out and stuff like that. Winter tires? Yeah no I I I don't think I you know we've got our potholes we've got bad politics we've got many things that is negative but if we if we just focus on positive stuff there's still a lot of good stuff here.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

You know what my my personal thing is the the best thing about this country to me is the people.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Yeah absolutely yeah yeah that is true and the thing is you know you can you must decide where are you gonna navigate yourself through all the the bad stuff and find the right and good routes because then you can you can enjoy life here. I'll take for instance I've got my brother-in-law he he lives in Malawi for many years now 16 17 years and I visited him several times there and that is a true African poor country but you know if you look at Malawi Malawi is in Blantyre but if you know he started a coffee shop and a guest house he used to be um the manager for ShopRite he've put up quite a few shop rights up in in Africa and Tanzania and so and now he's retired but He started this coffee shop guest house thing there, and they do have a lot of challenges with phorex and stuff. But he told me, you know, and and I actually experienced it. I could see that these expats find their ways to enjoy life in Malawi fantastically because they know how to do it. You don't have to expose yourself to all the bad areas and bad situations. You can navigate yourself through all this and still enjoy life. You can go to the lake or this or that. But I mean, that's just an example. So and I think pretty much the same, yeah. If you take your house, if you take your practice and you put this now in the UK, you know, it's it's unaffordable. You you can't do that. You can't, you can't, even an ordinary house here in the UK will cost you millions of francs, you know.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

So And apart from that, I I just feel like you you can't pull up your neighbor and say, hey, let's meet and do this or let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Yeah, that's the nature of people here in South Africa. Well that's an that's a nice thing about Stonerton. I told the the guys the other day. I said, you know, we are so, you know, the community is is so nice here that you can pick up a phone and and phone the electrician and say, Listen, Rudy, come here and just fix this for me, please. Or you phone Varner, the plumber, and say, Listen, man, I've got a problem. And so did I know, but just, you know, and without ripping you off, you will just come and and sort it out for you. That does.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

You will not find air in the city. What you're talking about, that is what made me realize I want to be a small town person. It's a community. You go to the shop, say, hey, doc, doc, how do you think? Everyone knows you then. Yeah. Yeah. Which which can be a problem. But it's also a great thing, right? No, it's a great thing.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

You know, I I find it very nice to chat to all these people, and and after all these years, you know, you know them. And they and and I think it's a positive, you know, a big positive. Me too. Yeah. Um, but you want to speak a bit more about medicine.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

I want to ask, no, I want to ask you about actually we can speak about anything, so we can carry on and flow. But I wanted to ask about med school specifically, because having spoken to many people that studied Pretoria, it's got this reputation for being like quite very strict in military style training and hectic.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Did you experience it that way? No, no, not really, no. I think I we had very good training in it in the days that I was there. Really, I I uh we had good um lecturers, um, good specialists. It was a prestigious hospital also. You know, many guys from overseas visited the hospital. I mean doctors from overseas. And it was that was very disciplined. You know, you you either we worked with Thays and and uh uh in the in the summer months you had your white white coats that you that you that you wore. But it was a disciplined system because if you come late into the class during a lecture, you will be chased out. I remember the one neurologist, proof Professor von der Maiden. You know, when a guy comes in late 10 minutes, he will just tell that guy go out. You will not see that today. That discipline is not there anymore. Because I experienced this um after studying, I was still I was in Stanisla actually, and I attended a diabetic course at Tucky's, and I was sitting in the class there, and halfway through the lecture, these guys, four of them, just came in, disturbed the whole lecture, moved in, and that was fine. And I thought, how is this possible? It wasn't like that in lifetime. That's a norm now. Yeah, yeah. But you know, even I actually sort of pissed off the sorry for the professor uh, because he was uh, you know, I paid for that course. So if I paid for that course, then I can ask the questions um like I want to ask them. So these lecturers were all Afrikaans lecturers, and they gave it in their lecture in English. They struggled in English to give the lecture properly. So I thought, you know, I'm gonna ask a question for myself now, because I want to know about this specific thing, but I will ask it in Afrikaans so that he can give me a good answer in Afrikaans. And then this prof said, no, no, no, for our friends speak English. And I thought, you know, I'm not asking this for my friends, I'm asking it for myself. So afterwards, I wrote a letter to the dean. And I said, you know, I paid for this, and this professor stopped this guy not to ask me, not to answer me in Afrikaans. You know, and the dean sent me an apology like this and said, He's very sorry it shouldn't have been like that. And that's just, you know, one of those simple things of discipline that changed over the years. And maybe you've experienced much more of this, that guys can come in and go out as they wish. And it wasn't allowed when I was. That happens in meetings even now. Yeah, yeah. And it's disturbing. But I mean, you know, I sort of also now, if you if you go to a congress or a symposium, I've adjusted to this now. Uh, but that is just how we were trained in those days. You'll be there on time, you don't come late, you don't interrupt a me uh a lecture or a meeting, uh otherwise you stay outside. You see, it's because our epigenetics was altered when we were.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

I think so. Yeah. I think so. It really depends on upbringing and what you're exposed to. Yeah, you know. I I wish I wasn't that type though. I've had this c who did we have this conversation with? Like, are you the type of person that if you if you've got um an appointment at like 10 o'clock, you you make sure you're there like 10, 15 minutes. Absolutely. Are you one of those? I'm one of those. I'm one of those. But you know there's people that will come on the dot. Yeah, they will, yeah. And they don't stress. I feel like I wish I was them. Yeah. Because then I wouldn't stress as much as I do. It it adds stress to your life a bit. You know, but it is. Yeah, but even if you are late, I mean that what it says about you not being a timeliest person is that your time is more valuable than the other person's time. So you it's okay to disrespect their time. Yeah. Yes. That's how my interpretation is.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

That's true what you say there, yeah. No, I I think, you know, it's rather be much earlier than to, you know, well, I think that comes actually also from my from my dad and my mother. They're always, you know, they were on time. My mother is actually, she's in her 80s now, and she's still, you know, if if I phone her and say, I'll pick you up half past six to take you to dinner or whatever, she will actually stand outside from six o'clock. Yeah. Which is crazy, but she's doing it, you know. My parents are the same, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Yeah. Um apparently Mandela was like that also. Like very uh a stickler for being on time and like would make sure his people, you know, whoever's underneath him, beneath him. Uh but that seems to have changed in time. Yeah, like people are more just relaxed with rocking up on time or late or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

I read a book the other day, which was actually a very, very good book. Um just a second-hand book that I stumbled across, you know, coffee shop or somewhere. Uh, what is this? Radzinski, I think it's a Polish writer. Um The Shadow of the Sun. Excellent book. So what he said in that book was like Africa has got a different way of time. And he was a journalist working in Africa for many years. And um and he saw it, you know, if there's a meeting, I say we're gonna have a meeting to tonight at 8 o'clock. And you come there and there's no one. There's one guy standing around. And he said, but is it not eight o'clock? And he asked this guy, when is the meeting starting? And he said, No, the meeting will start when everyone is here.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

We have a joke. We also call it Indian time, yeah. Weddings. It's a wedding. But it's so funny, today, like today's episode, no normally he will send me away's location every single time he leaves. He feels like I'm the paranoid one. Yeah, but today was the first day he didn't. Yeah, he just said he's on his way. Yeah. So then I I'm thinking, okay, right, cool, I have some time or the gym. And then I drove up here, and then I thought it was him behind me because you guys have the same car.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

I looked at the biggest man, it was you and Dr. Betsy. Yeah. And I thought to myself, oh my god, now I'm getting anxiety because I'm 30 minutes. Oh, yeah. This guy's not, yeah, yeah. And then uh our epigenetics, it's our upbringing. I feel like you saw it.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Yeah, I you know, I you know, it's like let's call it brainwashing or what indoctrination. Yeah, indoctrination of the brain. Yeah. You know, if you if you do that, it sticks with you for very, very long. It's like I think it's like carbohydrate addiction. You know, if you if you keep on teaching someone to eat high carbs all the time, they get addicted, and carbs are very addictive, then um it takes you quite a while to change that again. Change your your brain to crave for different other things than than for carbs. But um let's get back to yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

Once you quit, I mean, well not quit, once you finished, what do you do after you guys you you mentioned a term called what's it husband husbandship or househip?

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Yeah, yeah, that's yeah. Nowadays I think it's internship or husband year. It means it's after you studied, then um you must go to a hospital. There were no comms stuff like that. You're just gonna go and do this this year. And the it depends what you want to do. So if you you must select a hospital, and I was lucky, I went to Kernstadt. And there at those days there were two hospitals, Botchemalo and Furtracker Hospital, and we worked at both, but most of the time at Botchemelo Hospital. So it it was days where there was a lot of unrest and a lot of political unrest and gunshots and stuff like that. Nowadays I I'm not really in the mood for uh trauma stuff anymore. But what what happened there was um when you did a surgical rotation and you're on call, you never go home. You work right through the night at Grandstadt. And there was an excellent surgeon there, um, a Dr. Brunk. I I really I learned a lot from him. And this guy was like a machine, you know, he worked day and night, and then you you get this um acute abdomen, and he just tells you, listen, go to theater, take the guy. Now you're in your houseman. You go with one medical officer, they are not other specialists, you've got an anesthetist, you open this guy and you tell him, Doc, um this is bad stuff, you know, this and this happened. And he he actually he fell asleep again, you know. So now I'm standing in the theater with this open. I'm not sure very sure what to do here now. Um, and then you phone him again and then he will come. He'll come and he will come and show you, and and and let's sort it out like this. But then you need to, you're under pressure to learn fast, to study and to learn fast, to fix things fast. You know, like I let's take for instance amputations. They will show you one amputation. I said, next time we'll assist you and you will do the amputation. Now I think it's a good way to learn that way. This guy still assists you and it will show you, but it put you under pressure to start learning much quicker. You must do your anatomy, you must do your stuff. And that was good. And I think after after Kronstadt, I did a lot of operations in my in my Housman year, which is now like an internship. And most of the guys nowadays, when they come to Stanetton in an internship, they haven't done anything. They haven't done a C-section, an appendix, or nothing. That's for Compsur. They come to you for Comms after internship.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Of yeah. Yeah. And they can't do nothing. But you know what's the funny thing is, let's pause here because if somebody from the UK or Australia or Canada is listening to the story, right, they'll be thinking, oh my goodness, they made you, Dr. Lowe, do all this stuff in your first year after qualifying.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

That's like, wow, bizarre. Yeah, it is bizarre, yeah. Because you know, they need all the specialists around them. But you must remember we had also a lot of specialists in in um in in Cranston. But this guy will stand next to you and he will tell you, all right, do now and let me see what's happening here. Or if this is what you encounter, yeah, are you gonna solve this problem now? So you will be guided. But you do. But next time you will go in first and either we'll watch and see what you do. So, and I think, you know, the outcomes of the patient was actually, you know, the outcomes were good.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

Um, and this is why the South African doctor is sought after everywhere in the world, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Channels are exchange programs. A lot of the guys from the UK and Canada come here.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

I can actually I'm I'm I'm um I'm jumping around a bit now, but but I just remember this. When I worked in the in the homeland at Mboulini Hospital, there was a I worked with Dr. Fuller. He was a retired cardiotoracic surgeon from Joburg. It wasn't private practice here. I think he was one of the first guys that that did bypasses up here in trans in those days at Transvaal. So this Dr. Fuller was such a humble guy. You know, I learned a lot from him. And he very energetic, and um with this esophagus cancers, you know, it's a huge operation. Um so what he did was he goes through the through the uh the thoracic area right through into the midline of the abdomen, open this whole area, resect that cancer, and pull up the stomach. Just to summarize it quickly, like this. Now you either assist or you do the anesthetic. You do it with the old gases, alustane and pentaphil and stuff like that. It can cause a lot of A-rhythms and stuff like that. But you did that operation, it took what approximately four hours, and you don't have ICUs and stuff here. You know, after this operation, guy goes to the ward, he was specials specially checked up in the ward, obviously, and I tell you no, the outcomes were good. You know, I I'm not talking about long-term, I'm talking getting rid of the cancer because there were no stents to put in so that this guy can swallow and stuff like that. But um, at the end of the day, looking at what we did and how we because what would you do if you sit with this guy nowadays? Transfer. Transfer. And what will happen then? You will come onto a list. Yeah. You'll come onto a list, and when you eventually come to the front of the list, you will be probably dead or so advanced that you can't do anything for it. And I want to come back to this later on, because there's there's a definite something that happened in this country that pulled our practice into this niche where we could help many people that can't wait to get to the front of the list. But I'll I'll get back to that. So after Grandstadt, um one year. How many years is it? Yeah. So you you studied then um six years and you did that husbandship. Nowadays it's shorter, yeah. It's five years. Well, some some places it's five, but most most places it's six, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

And then they do two years of internship.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

Two or three years of internship. So then it was that Angolan war. Okay. So and um I went to the military, my military service was uh in those days were two years. Did you have a choice? No. Okay. That was, you know, you had to do it. So um went to the military, uh, we started there in um Clipdruff, close to Potch, and then we moved to Vitt Rant, which was an old psychiatric hospital, that they converted into a uh military base for medics. Okay. So we did our uh you know, now you're already a doctor, and you know, they chased you around this young corporal of 19 years. But it's fine, you know. I went through that, it's fine. What do you have to do? Did I train you how to all that stuff. Yeah, you do the basics. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

And you shot a firearm before. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

Yeah, yeah. And then you do the firearms and all those things that you need to do, and and you know, map work and compass work that I did well as in the trick. So then um uh that was time to go to to the border. So I was posted um to uh to ru uh no to the caprivi to uh 3-1 battalion. It was close to 3-2 battalion, uh Miocha. It was in the middle of the Caprivi, Caprivi stroke. Uh but the but the war was just quite hectic at that stage. So it was it was an active war there.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

Yeah, can you tell me I mean Angola's quite far away.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

What what was the what was the inference of South Africa getting involved?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

You see, those days uh with uh Namibia was South West Africa and it was sort of under the guidance of of South Africa, but then uh Swapu was a political organization that wanted to take over that area. So um and Angola and Cuba and all those guys got involved up there, and we sort of I don't know why we did actually. Why why we decided to engage into this war. I think it was more for the protection of Southwest Africa, which is now in Namibia. So the South African troops were sent up there, and there's there are many books written about this. I just went up there as a as a doctor, you know. So they dropped you, you you the plane dropped you in Gretfontaine, and then you jump in the back of a bedfoot and they and they drove you all the way up to Rundu. And from Rundu it's been a very long drive still to to the middle of the Caprivi. Were you married by then, though? Yes. Okay. I just got married and then so you have to leave your wife. She was in at Molini. So and the thing is uh like I said, only one telephone call maybe per week that you can do. Yes. No cell phones and letters, you know. You know, we we we wrote a lot of letters. Yeah. Do you do you do you keep them? Do you have them? Uh no, I think I've destroyed all the letters. Boxes full of them, we chucked them away after years. No, um, and then uh what happened was when we got to Rundu, um then they gathered us all the way, all the doctors there. There was one guy who who um worked with me at Grandstadt.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:19

And now that the commander asked a question, he said Which one of you sitting here can remove a spleen if necessary?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

You know, say maybe after a gunshot or whatever. Now everyone is quiet. Because we know if you can remove a spleen, now you're gonna go right into Angola, yeah. And now this guy that worked with me at Queenston, he said, Commander, this guy. And he pointed to me, this guy can take out a spleen. And I said, What the hell? Why is he doing this now? And and the commander told me, Listen, go and stand there. And so he select also a guy that can work with kids, pediatrics, and this and that. And he said to us, you you just stay there. And all these other guys said, You all go to the front line, open Angola. I said, Thank you, my friend. So I went to a hospital then there in the Caprivi, um, there at um Umiecha. And you know, there's about a population of 5,000 Bushmen there. So we served that community. All the severe caser vaccine came down with bat injuries, they just flew them right down to to the States again. Um, so m my first my first um casualty I can remember very clearly, it was um it was uh One of the Bushman females, she was washing in the Kavango River, doing washing there. And as she was washing, a crocodile grabbed her on the arm. So it crushed her arm very badly, but we flew her down to also to the States. So we did a lot of obstetrics and other operations, appendixes and earnias and stuff like that. And it was nice. We worked nice. There was a dentist there with us. And then got uh for the for the kids. Um GP, but he was interested in pediatrics, so he did all the the children. So I I enjoyed it. It was it was a good time. Um there it was war it, and you know, you feel far and away because you've you know, I was married only for a short time and now it's yeah, that's a bit bad. Um, but you know, at the end of the day, we came back and it wasn't that bad at all. After how long? I went I was on the border for three months. Um and after that we came back. I had a bit of a struggle. You know, they get you it's easy to get you there, but to get you back is not always always so easy because now first there wasn't a plane um uh available, and then they told us, listen, sleep in Gretfontein, me and my crew, just sleep on the on on the on the floor. There are no beds. I thought, you know, now they treat us really bad after we did all this work up here. And I went to the to the Air Force commander and I said to him, you know, when you needed us, we were here, but now we want to go back. And every day you tell us there's no plane here. And then he actually contracted the Boeing out for us, and then they flew us down.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:54

Well, you you you see you you strike me as somebody who's not afraid to speak their mind, because you did this with the lecturer at uh university, and you tell the commander.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

I think sometimes you just need to to to to to tell what you need to tell and ask what you need to ask, because I mean, and I think it's justified because you know you did your part, yeah, and you did, and it was hard work, and now I think it's time just to do the ordinary 'cause my wife went out there and the plane arrived there in Pretoria. And when the plane arrived, there was no one on the plane. Yeah, that's because you couldn't get you can't just send the messages. Yeah, and she's about four hours' drive from there, you know. So um, no, and luckily they did listen to us. Um but uh I think you know it it was also a learning curve for me. All that those things that you do up there, and even the clinics around that, the Bushman clinics, you must remember you can a Unimok ambulance. Those huge things. Yeah. Unimorks. And really, if as you as you drive there, lions are lying uh like this thing. Elephants. It's a unimok. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

You know these things. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's like a G-Wagon.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

Yeah, yeah, and much bigger. Yeah, bigger than a G-Wagon, yeah. And then uh, you know, elephants, it's in the wild. And then for each community or Bushmen community, um you give like we give them a R1 rifle to protect themselves, you know, against the lions and the and the animals and stuff. So and then you sit there and you see all the sick, you you bring a lot of medication in the ambulance and you treat uh the pneumonias and the bronchitis and whatever you can. And those that are too sick get into the ambulance and you will take them back to the base. And and out and out. What an experience. Yeah, it was it was, I think it was. You it was an experience for me. And you you l you learn from these people too, yeah. They always have to tell you um, you know, about common things that you don't learn in textbooks, like from roots and what they use up there, you know. The Busmen, yeah, they they know how to survive, even in harsh conditions. But I I found it a very was a good spirit of all, you know, if I look at the two years of my army, except for when I was in the home at at the homeland, um the the border time was actually a good time. Good in a sense of learning, a learning curve, experience, and um uh what I brought back with myself from there was good.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:50

So what comes next then after that?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:52

Then I went to to Mbulani and I started working at that hospital now, and I still did uh part-time military um clinics. I did it for the military, but I did the clinics in the at the border on Sargent Border. It's quite, you know, you get a you get a 4x4 because it's remote and um and it when it rains it's it's almost in inaccessible. Uh so I did that and then I did um um the Sikh Bay at in Amsterdam at the military base there. So I went there in the mornings. I hate parades, so I try to avoid them. So once now and then the commander will call me in and he will scream at me and say, you know, why are you not on the parade grounds and stuff? What do you what what was what's that? What do you do there? Training military. No, no, they you know they they march there and it's a whole ritual in the mornings, and I I didn't like it. You had to do that? Yeah, now we had to do it, but now when I did the the sick pain stuff, I wasn't in the mood to doing this stuff again. I just came from the border and I didn't want to draw there in the mornings and do stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

What's the point of that? What why do they make you do that?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:12

You know, it's this wasting of the flag, and you stand there and they will say this and this will happen today, and um and it's a it's a whole ritual of you know, when when I was at school, there was something um I don't know what you would call it nowadays, cadetta.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

Yeah, the cadets.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

Yeah. We had we had like a military um episode once or twice a week. You were actually dressed in browns with a beret and stuff, and you marched. They they taught you that at school already. Do you know about this, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

No, sounds terrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

It's actually not so bad. Yeah, I think that sort of laid the ground for you when you when you when you went to later on when you went to the to the true uh military training, you were actually sort of primed. So they primed you for the club. You primed you. And um there was actually cadet camps at school. Well, just like in the army. You had to leopard crawl under fences and you stayed in tents. I think that eventually evolved into something recreational called scouts. Well, like a scout almost.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:29

But also you see why it's it's news to us, because I don't think they would have done this in the schools where people of color went.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:37

That's probably true. Yeah. That is true. Because it was still apartheid. Yes. Yeah. And they weren't going to be in the army, so what's the point of it? Of course, yeah. No, you're absolutely right. Yeah, I think it was just because of that. But but you know, I think, you know, if you if you look at our military nowadays, it's I don't think it's ex it's really sort of non-existent. Based on what I see on social media, there's not a lot of stuff going on at the moment. But I mean that is how it was. But you'd you're absolutely right. Yeah, that's why you you were not exposed to, or those guys were not exposed to this. But um, you know, after that period, uh, when I was in at um at the homelands, uh, I did a lot of work. That was a brand new hospital with new anesthetic machines and stuff. We did um, you know, like that operations of Dr. Fuller, C-sections, all sorts of operations and stuff. And he uh and they were visiting um specialists, gynecologists, and stuff like that, people like that. Um and uh it was different from me. I stayed on the on we had a new house. It was just built, brand new, on the premises. So we moved into that house and it was like 300 meters from the hospital. So I could walk there every morning. But you know, nowadays, you know, I think there's a different, you know, the guys will do a ward round in the morning, probably not at night, but I I didn't care, you know. I went there and did my ward rounds. If I was worried about a sick patient, I would go back at night and have a look again. And what was the money like? Did they pay you well? No, it's like government salary. Yeah, you know, it was uh you know, do I own a lot of people?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:30

Do you remember what you did with your first paycheck?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:33

I actually do. Yeah. My first paycheck in in Kronstadt when I was i intern. Yeah. Um I I bought a a hunting rifle.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:46

And I'm not a I'm not a crazy hunter at all. But in those days I thought, you know, it would be good to have a good hunting rifle. I did it, I did some hunting, um, and I bought a camera. That's the two things that I bought. And you know that rifle, uh a Saku, which is a good hunting rifle, I still have it today. And I think it there's, you know, that that is, in in my opinion, still a fairly good rifle because um I didn't use it that much. You know, you know, some of the some of my partners and so they are really uh hunters in in soul and bone because they go every year and they will really hunt quite a few animals. But I will say, listen, I have a aim. I would say less, I want a trophy of maybe this animal. So I will go after two or three years and just look for the specific animal. And I did this over a year, so I've got about five or six trophies. Who taught you how to hunt? No, I taught myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:55

Is it not a thing you do growing up with the old man?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

How does it work? I mean, no, my father never hunted at all. No. Didn't even have a hunting rifle or nothing. I think I did it more with my friends, you know, like Donna. Yeah. Um I went with him. Uh, and one of the other doctors actually, he had used a farm, a wildlife farm, and which I uh they converted it later into a nature reserve. But we did a bit of hunting there and um later on around Staneton I did some, um, but never like always up there, but never like you know crazy driven hunting. Okay. Because some guys will, you know, they will just keep on going every year and hunting is a big thing in Afrikaans culture.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:45

I mean, when I grew up, I grew up in Durban, right? I didn't have Afrikaans peers or friends. I learned about it later on, and it's a big thing, right? It's like an annual thing that the guys go on the hunting.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:55

It is every year, absolutely. So they they they and they book again. Yeah because they book on these farms where they go out and they will do it every year and they stay on the farm. You know, it's a big and then you come home with all the meat.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:09

Yeah, and then it's a whole time making. Yeah, here in this community, it's uh it's a very Greek community. Yeah. And a lot of our patients go out to to hunting, not for the purposes of of uh recreational, but to get me the meat in order to come and cure it and then stuff. Yeah, then they sell it out to the butchers and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:31

Um, yeah, I mean it this is also some like it's like the I would say for some people it's like a hobby. Um and you know, I I take my accountant for for instance Rudy from Stonerton, you know, Rudy is uh he's passionate about hunting. Uh and guns, uh guns it's absolutely um uh a massive passion. You know, you will I've seen his he's he's um he's actually um such uh um passionate about the hunting that you can sit for hours and talk to him about his guns, guns that you will not see here in South Africa. He goes to Germany and they will bolt a gun for him per specification with specifics on and you know and uh he will select and he will collect guns, uh, which is fantastic, you know. But I mean I'm not a that is not my passion at all. So everyone has has got his own passion. And the camera? Do you still have that? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:44

I why a camera? Were you a big photographer?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:47

I'm still I'm still taking quite a bit of uh you know, I I wouldn't say I'm uh I'm uh pro, but I like doing photography. I think there's a bit of a I like art. Yeah. And um What sort of photography? Um wildlife people, but you know, if I look at the first thing that I did when I was let me just say when I when I was in the homeland, then at one point I decided, you know, my wife sort of started to getting fed up sitting there in the bundle all the time. She wanted to co to go to a town. And I had to start looking for what will be my next step. Will I go to back to university and specialize in something? Or will I go to a practice? So what I did was I did a locum. It was just a coincidence that the locum was in Stanerton. So I went to Have you been there before to Stanerton? No. Well, I I just drove through it, but I've never visited the town. So I went there and I did this locum for a GPD, and then I bumped into Dr. Van Jeden, which was which later became my partner. And I bumped into him and I knew him then only from university because at that point, when I was still in the island, I started to do a master's degree in family medicine. And we were in the same class. Okay. So he bumped into me and he said to me, Listen, you know, one of our partners are leaving the practice, he's going farming. Can't you join us here? And when I did that locum, I sort of summarized what was going on there. And I said, you know, I can actually work in this town. So I told him, yes, all right, I think, and my wife got a job there at Stamington Hospital. And I said, Yeah, no, I'm gonna join you. Um, so that will bring us to a town at least, and and I and I solved a couple of problems. So I said to myself, you know, if I can get satisfaction out of the job there, I will not go and specialise in that. And it was different those days. The the the medical s conditions and the medical services was different than it's now. So um what happened was I could I could I could sort of do everything that I want to do. What year was this? It was I started there in in 90, 1990, January 1990. So I could do obstetrics, I could do surgery, could do orthopedics, everything. And and that is that brings me to the question, you know, should I replay everything? Would I go and specialize now or would I just continue like I did? And I think in my heart I am probably a generalist. I enjoy doing all these things and I did it at a different level. I know I did it at a different level, and and that's why it was so satisfactory um to do it like that. And if I had to make a if if the conditions were the same, I probably would have done exactly the same choices. Um you see, and that what I mentioned earlier was because of the deterioration of the medical services in the country and I would say if you look at the state sector, and I don't criticize them, but because of the system that they that they designed now, they designed a system where new doctors can't do basically anything. And they don't want to, many of them don't want to do anything. And what I mean by that is like like operations or anesthetics. So what happened now, if you get a guy with uh, and I'm talking about say stanatin, if you get a guy with uh appendicitis, they're not allowed to take it out or to do the operation. They need to refer to a next level hospital, which in this case is Armula then. So now this patient can lay there in the hospital in casualty, and the doctor phone Armuler and asked for a bed for the surgeon. And if there are no beds available, this patient must stay there now in casualty, or it looks like they keep them in casualty until there's a bed available. Of course, I I operated the girl like this about last week, week before last, because the family came there and said, no, she's been lying there for two days now, the pain's not getting better and stuff. So the system failing the patients now. Not because the doctor is necessarily bad or so, but because of the referral system. Yes, it's failing both sides. Yeah, and now on the other side, there are not enough guys that can do the work, there are not enough beds, there are too many patients, so the lists are getting longer and longer. And in that way, something happened. And what happened here is that it created a specific opening in my practice to help these patients. So I would say it's more by serendipity than anything else, because now these patients sitting in wait for a for a transfer will come to the surgery and say, Doc, um, listen, this is the problem. My wife is bleeding continuously, she had this huge fibroid uterus, she had several bright transfusions, she's on a list at Armouleu, but it's been a year now, they haven't called her, she needed blood again. Can you help us? And then the family, and for a reduced fee, we will say, all right, now we will operate you, we will do a hysterectomy or whatever, and the family will come to you and you will do it, and you will look after the patient instead of an hospital. But the hospital, as from recently, also brought out a fee system where this patient will be regarded as private thing, because she's using a private doctor, and she must pay a fee when she goes in. But if you compare that to what you pay at Mediclinic or Medcare or wherever, it's it's really a minor fee. It's a public-private partnership. Yeah, it's a public private partnership thing. And which helps a lot of these patients, because you know, some of them, um I can't, you know, it's difficult just to explain to you the intensity of this whole issue. It is actually a major problem. Yeah. Because if you look, I I saw a young lad, young, not young lad, 37. He he came to me and he said to me, That's young, Doc. That's young. Come on. That's young, come on, you're not. That's our age, though. We call it young. And he said to me, you know, I've got something here, you know, I don't feel something here that bothers me. You know, I just put my hand and I could feel there's a huge tumor there in his leather. So I said to him, listen, this is bad. And I I don't know how he got to me, because this is the other thing. My word of mouth, people yeah, this guy and that down will help or assist you. And we are a team, you know. You must remember Dr. Manson is my partner, and he's doing all this anesthetics for all these big operations. And then I've got my other doctors that also assist or co operate, or you know, which

SPEAKER_01 1:28:00

Makes it very But what happens when you guys all either die or retire? Because I I asked this question because i it's not common. I I've this is my perception. Very uncommon. It's uncommon that GPs will do this kind of work.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:13

You're absolutely right. We're one of the very rare practices that we still and our predecessors um trained us and and and to do these type of things. And now you you you're absolutely right. I think we will go extinct and this practice will stop. But now I'm actually lucky. I've got a I've got a Dr. Kuchlovsky, which is a female. She did a commsurf at Staninton. She's a very capable surgeon now. She she learned fast, she's five years with us now. She's already doing major ops and she's good. And I've appointed now Dr. Molo Johani. He's still young, he's still in the learning phase. Dr. Prinsler joined us from the other practice. He's there been for many years, as long as I am there. But their practice split up.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:02

I think the biggest problem you're gonna have is keeping keeping it. Because is it isn't it a thing that people just move on?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:09

Yeah, you see, um that is one of my big concerns. So hopefully I try my best to, and I think, you know, because the work is interesting, it's not like just like a consultation practice, not at all. Because we do gastroscopies and um obstetrics and ultrasounds and all these things. So the the work is interesting and you help a lot of people. You know, if you if you think you do a gastroscopy, and and I can just tell you that we've diagnosed so many esophageal and stomach cancers, and you can take a biopsy and you can phone a specific and say that we've got this cancer, and you will say scent, we will do this, this. You know, you help a lot of patients just by doing that. But now with this niche where you can help government patients or state patients or non-private, non-medical aid patients, I think there a lot there is a specific area where we do a lot of good for people. So even from other towns now, we get patients coming there with huge hernas or um inguinal hernias or fibroid uteruses, you name it. And and you can try and assist these people. Like this guy that I was talking about came there with this thing here, and I scanned him, and it was a huge liver tumor. Now, I sent him, I said, listen, I can't refer you to Pretoria because they're gonna tell you go to Saniton Hospital. You must you know the system. You know the system. So just go there to and when he was he said to me, I don't want to die, I want to live. Yeah, I'm young, I want to live. I said, okay, go to Steve Pico and just tell him that you you've you actually lived there, you've got an address there, whatever, and tell him that you've got pain. Just look at you, something is wrong here. So he went there and I sent him to Chuane Hospital, which is the right way. The doctor examined him there. And and she write, I saw the the paper because he brought it back. He part of megaline, big liver. Um, but nothing about a tumor, testing for viral hepatitis and stuff. And they sent him to Steve Beaker. I didn't see a referral note back from them, but he said the doctor, Steve Beaker, examined him, did ultrasunset note. You find renters medications, and you don't you don't need to come back. Because I know I know for a fact that is that is bad news, this thing. So now he he comes back to me and he said, you know, this is this is the so what now? I said, I said, please, now now you now you sit in a predicament. He tells me, you know, please help me, I want to learn. I said, I the only thing that I can do is I can take you to theater and maybe do a biopsy or see how what is going on inside. And with that result that you need to pay with privately to a pathologist, we maybe can get you into oncology. No, we will he will do that, we must try and help him. So we did it, and we did this operation, um, which is not a small operation. Now you remove a tumor like this from the liver, it needs a lot of blood transfusions and stuff, and then I could see there are small other ones in the liver. I know he's got metastases as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:54

So that was a full resection or full resection of that tumor.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:58

I decided let me take out that whole thing then. So we took it out and we sent it in an advisor part of the cellular, poorly differentiated cancer. So, but he recovered very well. And now I know his his prognoses are poor because I could see there are small other ones in the liver when I was inside. Because he never had an MRI. You couldn't see the other ones on the ultrasound, it was at the back of the liver. So now my female partner, she got him in um at the oncology now at Steve Beaker, giving him the histology and say, go back there and see what we can do now. But now you know, and you've seen it all over the news, that the the lists, the oncology lists, um are very long. I think at one stage I heard about there's a backlog of 3,000 patients or something that all needs oncology. How are you gonna drive them through a system? It's impossible. So you get a patient now that comes there with a cervix cancer, um cervical cancer in situ, um, on a PAP smear or a biopsy, and and you say, no, you're gonna need a you're gonna need a uh hysterectomy, and then follow up the histology and see whether you're gonna need something more. If you don't do that, and you tell that patient, listen, you're gonna come on a list for a hysterectomy maybe in two years' time, that thing will be infiltrated. And that's what's happening. In reality, it happens. Um, and then it's just too late.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:48

But you know what the story about the liver issue tells me is that the community of Stanerton needs to treat you very well, make sure you live long. Or you guys must have a proper transition plan in place where you're gonna train up another set of GPs and make sure they stay somehow. Are they trying to do it? What are they? Yeah, and you guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:07

Dr. Monson and myself are partners. So the others are not really associates, they work for the practice. Um, so we they work for a percentage of the practice. We we run the admin and the practice, and the bowling is ours, but and we supply all the instruments and everything, and we service all the instruments. They just work and they work for the percentage of patients, which is if you do the calculation, it's it's quite good for them to work like that because they don't have any responsibilities as far as uh running a practice or so.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:47

Yeah, but but my point is, because also we left, because he was in Foxes, I was in Saniton. But the reason why we left is one of the reasons is I mean, it's a small town also, so you want to be if you're gonna have kids, you're thinking of what school am I going to ascend, all those other factors, you know. And and am I right that the GP practice is sort of like a dying thing in South Africa? It is, it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:10

You know, and the reason why it's dying, you know, I was we were very uh fortunate to get Dr. Pichlovsky to come, because she's a really good doctor. So um, and the thing is she's learning, she loves medicine. I see there is a bit of uh art in medicine, you know, you need you need to sometimes look at a different angle and to summarize and to say, and you know, and she's got that ability and she'd learn stuff, she wants to, and she's not taking chances. She will assist and she will look and she will ask, and she she will not engage into a big thing without uh having an assistant, uh assisting her. So I think she will she will turn out to be one of those. Dr. Malujani is still new. I think um he's he's he's keen on learning, but it's it's gonna take a time.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:03

But like you said, you know, it's it is absolutely difficult to get new guys in. And to keep them in in Sanaton, yeah. Yeah. In in a in a rural town, because the majority of them wants to go to, you know, if you look at many of the other GPs in town, you know, they lock their doors at night and they they're not even available after hours. And and you will know from a ethical, legal point of view, you should uh you must be available 24 hours if you overpractice. Go and drop your patient, there's no where where are they going to go now? You must provide for them. Am I right?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:38

Well, technically you must just they must be able to have access to emergency care care somewhere. Yeah. So um But also, uh now I'm thinking of Stanerton. What are how's the water issues there? Because I when I was there in 2011. It was I mean, when I was there in 2011, it was bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:56

No, this week was particularly bad because I had to cancel some of the elective cases, and I had to cancel the elective cases on Monday. So it's still happening, the water deal. Yeah, there is an issue now, definitely. Um that's another thing which will make a person think, should I live here?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:11

You know, should I say that?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:12

Well, there was a bit of uprising stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:14

There's nothing better here in Joe Burg, to be honest. That's a funny thing. I'm I'm in Santon now, and I always say it's funny because I moved from Standerton to Santon, and the water issue is a year.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:24

Yeah, yeah, that's well. But maybe it's me, yeah. You're not gonna escape, but I think you know, there was a lot of who are now, so um, I think it will come right. Apparently they did install new pipes and pumps and stuff. So at one stage we had my my even my tank was empty at at my house, but that's that's sorted out. But the problem is in theater, and the th and the issue in theater is the um sterilization of the packs afterwards. So um Where's your theater? Are you using state theater? We use the state theater. We have a private hospital. Um what we do have the big cases, same medical aid patients, so we do um we sterectomy, whatever. We transfer them the same morning to Marpe, which is a private, small private hospital. But we're in the process of, you know, it's been taking years and years now that we're planning um to uh extend it and to build a theater and stuff there. And we were just about on the point of starting now. Now, after COVID, they've changed certain rules, and that is the width of the of the passages inside the hospital. So Marpose apparently it's it's not wide enough. Now it changed all your plans again. Now you can't use this facility to join the others. Now we can just extend, but not so that now you need to go back to the architects and they need to draw up new plants. Um it's a difficult thing. But I must say, because we use Staninton theater very often in regular, we also make sure that you know the equipment is fine. So we bring in a lot of our own stuff as well. So for the NS, we use our own meshes and um our own K wires and uh instruments and electrical source and stuff. Stuff that's been bought and bring in now.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:22

So, Doc, you've been in Stanetton 36 years now.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:26

Um, what do you do besides being a doctor and saving the community then?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:31

Trying to save myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:33

Why? What do you need saving from?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:35

Okay, you know, I yeah, I think it's a good question because you know you need to save yourself sometimes to to deviate your mind to something else. So I I um my hobby, you know, years ago I used to when I only arrived there, I I took up painting and I enjoyed it. I did uh I did painting. But but the last couple of years I what I and I'm not trained, I'm self-trained. I'm welding. I I I'm I bought metal sculptures.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:11

And I use old I've got uh people that supply me with this old parts and stuff, and I build metal sculptures.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:18

Arc arc welding.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:20

Um spot. Uh mick welder.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:23

Okay. Mick welder with gas. I'm glad you know what this is. What does this mean? What is it all different types of methods that you can attach materials together?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:30

It's stick welder, like uh, and then the mick welder uses um just a gas shield and um then the wire.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:40

Where does this come from? It's a very random hobby. Like what do where do you think it comes from?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:45

I think you know, the I don't think well, maybe it's going back to my day. Of course, he was an artisan and stuff. Maybe. Did you see him work or? I did. Not that he was a welder. The welding thing we named it. But I the metal thing and the welding thing, it's something that intrigued me um a long time ago already. I started just I decided I just want to build interesting, eh? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Don't know why. And um, but I can for hours, I tell you, I can all day, I can stand in that garage and just planning how I'm gonna build this uh or that, and um and I will I will I will actually uh prepare it, I will and then I will stand back and say, listen, I need to change this a bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:36

I think I've seen uh Mrs. Dr. Lowe like post photos of some of your sculptures. What do you what do you do with them afterwards? Do you sell them?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:45

No, I've I've given some of them away and some of them I still keep and um I didn't really sell any of them. I made a big one now that I was still um I took a video actually a video yesterday of it. That's a huge thing. That's it's more like uh I thought of of anatomy. Yeah. I think I will call it the birth of anatomy. Yeah. I I can show I can show you the video later.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:13

Where do you put these videos? Do you just keep them for yourself or do you share them with the world? Like these videos of Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:18

If this is finished, I'll just put it on Facebook sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:20

So you have a page, a Facebook page for your sculptures. You must start that at Facebook. What's the point of doing it if you can't share it with the world, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:43:27

You know what I mean? Yeah, I must actually do that. Yeah. No, but I I love that. You know, the time is the issue. Yeah. I think time is uh limited, you know, for for for any obby. Time is limited. Um but if I do over off time, I I that's what I try to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:47

Is it stressful being in in your job? I mean, is it stressful? Because you said saving yourself, right? So there must be strong. No, it's it's very stressful.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:55

I think it is stressful, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:56

If I think especially with like how you're doing it, it sounds very stressful because you've got a uh high standard private, yeah, that and private and government collaboration. You've got to rely I mean, running a business in private is hectic. Yeah. You've got to rely on the government guys to do what they're supposed to. Yeah. But it's also not like you're just giving Pinado and treating headaches and stuff. Like you're doing, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:19

It's sometimes I must really go. I must tell you of this case. Um, and I I stick my knack out. I know that, you know. I know I stick my knack out to help people sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:30

And you gave a hint of that when you said you asked me the question about being available all the time. Yeah. You know, it sounds like in your mind you need to be available all the time to your patients.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:39

Yeah. Luckily, we because we're five now, we there is a rotation, and and if someone needs help and advice, we can contact one another. But you need your off time.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:50

But I I had this one case now, um she was in a car accident some time ago with a badly injured ankle, and that caused subsequently then secondary osteoarthritis. So that ankle is really completely buggered up, so she can't hardly walk on that foot, it's too painful. So she needed um uh ankle arthritis. So the joint needs to be re removed and then uh fixated, fused, um, and to uh you know that's a fairly big operation. Now you need actually uh C arm in theater. Uh X-ray, philosophy or fluoroscopy to see where where your screw is going, you can't go too deep. And now they approached me because she was she's got this medical aid, but when she was about to go in, I told her a co-payment of 70,000 rand, so we she can't, it wasn't possible for her. Now they came to see me and I said, you know, I really want to try and help you. But you must remember this, I I enter a field that I'm not used to do. It's um uh it's territory that is uh stuff that I'm not doing every day. Um and I I don't have a C on. So I I you must and then I explain all the complications that can happen. So I can I can try my best. Luckily there's a company that supplies screws, um, and they give us a good discount. But they come to theater with you from Joe Book. And you know, they they scrub also, and they if you need this, they give you this, and and they really give us a good discount because we told them our situation, how to help the patients. So my my dilemma was how would I know um where this the death of the screen? Well, I'm replacing the screen. If I go through and you're in a sit, uh don't have a C arm, and I'm in a sit tailor joint, and that could be an issue. So what I thought is, you know, I must make a plan for this. And then I I used artificial intelligence and I said to them, if my entrance is say on the tibia, I started drilling here. This is the height of the patient, the shoe size. Can you calculate for me a safe distance uh or a safe length for the screw? And I put in all those necessary info and he came back with the suggestions. And I thought, well, I I've I need to work with this now. See if I can do that. And I use those entrance points, put those screws, and I tell you, when I took an extra afterwards, it was exactly perfectly right. Couldn't believe it that I calculated it so nicely. And you know, don't have a C armor, C armor make it really easy for you. And um, luckily it worked really well now, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:11

Yeah, and you know what the thing is, right? Especially in the field that I work in, where I'm defending doctors and dentists every day, all the time, right? With complaints and things. There is a perception out there in the public that doctors just are out there to make money and you know they don't have time for their patients and things like that. But I hope patients watch these kind of interviews to see that that's not always the case. You know, there are people that go out of their way. All of this is done just to help the patient. You're not trying to figure out how I'm gonna make a quick buck kill. No, no, no. Whatever. All the thought that goes or being a MacGyver at it. Because I mean, there's also an indication that you know you have to have that CRM, otherwise you can't do that. Yeah, you didn't force the patient to do it. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:55

Exactly. You see, that you know, that word MacGyver that you use, yeah. I use that word very often. Because I tell I tell my I tell my my um. You see, he's old, he's got he knows MacGyver. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. I tell my my colleagues, you know, today I need to do a MacGyver trick again because I don't have this and I don't have that. Now I need to to organize something to sort this problem out.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:20

But it's also important you mentioned that you you you're upfront with the patient here. You're not going and you know, you're explaining to invitation.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:26

You know, you know, uh like you said, you know, I endeavor really in in difficult cases sometimes, and you as a as a lawyer would know that I'm sticking my neck out. So I need to explain to them. Um you know, do no harm if uh from an ethical point of view, you know, but you know, it I think it works both ways, you know. Just leave the patient is also doing harm, I think. Um and some of them are really critical. You know, I saw I saw a lady now. And I I only realized after the surgery that she wasn't from Stanerton. She's all the way here from from uh Susanguve here in Pretoria. And I think by word of mouth story spread, and there's a guy there that can help you, and he will she so they transfused her again here in Susanguve, and then she came to me, she and her partner, but he's a policeman, and she recently went on to his medical aid. But obviously now they're gonna exclude that for like a year. And if I say fibroid uterus, I mean I'm talking about like a 32-week pregnancy fibroid uterus, and she has got no kits. Now you sit with this dilemma: can we only just remove the fibroids? Or uh is it so bad when you get inside that you're gonna have to remove the whole uterus? So you need to explain that to her and say, listen, I will do this operation, but there's a good chance that you might end up losing your uterus, and you'll not have kits in the normal way, anyway. So, but I can see she's so the pain, the continuous bleeding, the necrotic discharges. And we did this operation, and I could see there's no there was no normal uterus left. Everything was necrotic and necrosis, degeneration of the fibroids. And I thought she must have had a bad time in her life. That's why they will come such a far way, just to sort this this out. And we did, I think we sorted it out, you know. So, but um, I'm actually grateful that I can do stuff like that. And I I think like you said, we're a very one of I I say like I I said like dinosaurs, dinosaur practices. We will probably go extinct in time. Hopefully not, but yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:00

Would you ever are you ever thinking of retiring anytime soon? How old are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:52:04

I can ask. Yeah, yeah. No, I I am 63. I'll be 64 now in in May. But I no, no, that's not I'm not even thinking of retiring. Um that's not part of my bucket list. Absolutely not. No, I think I will really I will expire if I retire. Uh that is not good. That won't be good for me. No, um enjoy my work. I I say if you wake up in the morning and you and you tell yourself, listen, if I don't want to go to work, then then maybe you should stop working. If you can, yeah. Yeah. But if you if you can still enjoy your work, um I think you should do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:43

You know, just don't get any welding injuries or the call.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:48

Just don't cut your hand or your fingers off behind it. We need to ensure that climb errorist and stuff like that. Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:58

Yeah, yeah. That's good, good news that you're still not thinking of you're gonna carry on until you can't anymore. Is there anything we didn't do? Oh, I remember. This book, now we're writing a book. Where does this come up? Yeah. The complexity of being human. What is this? This thing on the cover. The heart. Uh no, no. Prolapsed.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:15

No. It's two it's two persons. It's a little female and a male. Did you did you draw this? Yeah. Okay. Is that part of your art, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:53:27

What's this about, Doug? When do you when do you yeah, when do you tell us about it? Yeah, what made you think of it?

SPEAKER_00 1:53:34

Okay, you know, um, I think all of us walk around with ideas in your head, how you see life, and how you perceive life, and what do you think about different things on the planet? And it's difficult to sometimes discuss all these things with a specific person, because not everyone is open to what you think, and some will be offended, obviously. I was in a lucky situation that there are two persons that I can discuss this with very freely. And one was my retired partner, Dr. Van Elen. He retired last year, because he he he thinks the same as I did, and my son also. Your son? Yeah, my son, I can discuss all these things with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:21

That's great, eh?

SPEAKER_00 1:54:22

Yeah, and um, you know, the the thing is, and and you will know it and you will agree with me on that, is that um people are very diverse. I mean, you know, just look at the things, uh the different interests, the different clothes, the cars.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:41

It's beautiful, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:54:42

You know, everyone thinks different about things, you know, just take religion for one. Um 4,000, approximately 4,300 religions on the planet. And everyone thinks his religion is the right one. Or non-religions. You know, and at one stage I thought, you know, I must just go and sit down and write all these things that come into my mind, and then I started writing about all these different facets of evolution, and how I see religion and non-religion. And then I wrote a bit about the politics in the country, and I wrote a bit about my work, my all these things that I told you about the homelands and uh when did you write this, duh? Uh 2023, I think. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:32

So it's got all that everything that's affected your epigenetics and your way of the internet. Yeah, I mentioned everything in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:40

Um and the thing is, in the book, I w I published a book with a small publisher here in South Africa, and then I thought, you know, maybe I should just send it to a bigger publisher. And and what I did is I I sent it to um Austin Macaulay. Okay. So how it works is they they look at the book and I tell, listen, this book is publishable, so we will take it over or not. And they did take it over. So now I've I've got a contract with them. Congrats. And so it was re it was now um republished uh fairly recently, I think December. Oh congratulations, yeah. December. And now it looks similar. They just changed the the wording. It's still or the pattern, still the complexity of being human, but now it's on Amazon and on Tykolot. Oh great, I was gonna ask, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:33

That's so cool. It's got diagrams and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:35

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:37

That type of books. Oh, well done. That's awesome. So we can search for the what's it, the complexity of being human. But it does it say Dr. Eric Eric Lowe. Yeah. Yeah. You you mentioned something interesting to me, which I want to dig, and if I'm prying, you can stop me. You said the thing about, you know, there's two people you can speak freely about certain things with, and one of them was your son, right? Yeah. Did you because you mentioned earlier that you didn't feel that you connected very much with your dad. Yeah. Did you make a conscious effort?

SPEAKER_00 1:57:08

I did. I did. Yeah. Yeah. Because that bothered me my whole life. I did. Um, because even with my father-in-law, I I we were like friends. We had a good relationship. So it was completely different. And I made a a huge effort to uh to see that I do it right, as far as right as I can with my son, yeah. And um, you know, I I will never sort of force down ideas. That is part of this book is that I think you must create opportunities for everyone to to develop their own diversity um and and interest in stuff. Don't force them to think like you think. Don't make them like you not want to be. They must be their own person. They must focus on stuff that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:00

So you've taught me a lot from this conversation because I often wondered that with my daughter. She's six now. And I always wonder, do I want to be, should I be hands off or should I be hands-on, or do you want to force things on them? You never know, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:58:15

I think you yeah, I think you should guide. Guide, yeah. Yeah, guide. So I I I knew when I I when when my son was young, you know, um I I see I I sort of tried to bring in medicine, and I could see there's no interest whatsoever. You despise blood and stuff like that. But since he was small, small, he had this thing with computers. You know, those days, this what did you call those games that you um PlayStation? Yeah, even before PlayStation, there was this other little thing that you played.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:50

It was this called TV games. Yeah, that TV game stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:53

And then later on PlayStation and stuff like that. But I could see, you know, we're still small and he played those games on the on the computer. And I and he was never, you've never um uh th uh considered doing anything else but to go into con computers.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:09

He wasn't cutting up birds and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:11

He's all men, yeah. Never, yeah. He was sitting with well well, I think he's got a very intellectual mind, and so he he studied um computer um informatic uh science and he's a software programmer now, or developer, what do you call him nowadays? So and that's what he does, and he and he and he loves his work, you know, he loves uh programming. There's a lot of stress in that. I didn't realize that there's so much stress in that work. And because I see now they call him right through the night if this gross is at the bank or something, then he needs to just to stand up and he's got this consciousness in him that he should attend to it and he's very ambitious. And if he's part if he's if his team, you know, they call it uh he's running a team, and if his team can't fix it, then he will, even on his off days, will stand in and find.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:11

Some things are just genetics. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 2:00:14

Yeah, look. But um, yeah, no, I think you know, I think we play a huge role um in the upbringing of our kids, but I think like you say, it's it's a complicated thing. It's just you need to do a subtle subtle, yeah. Yeah, and you need to guide subtle because you don't want to force anything down on them. But you can play a huge role in the epigenetics, you know. And I think for instance, diet eating is one of those things. Now some people tend to think that kids could eat any junk because they're kids. It's not completely true. They can have the one day of junk eating, but I think the other days you need to maybe guide them in a I think you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:56

Yeah. Dr. Lo, it's been a privilege. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Uh thanks for having me. Yeah. I I hope that like you know everybody in Stanerton watches this and comments and sends you messages and things like that and me. And um, yeah, thanks for taking time on a Sunday and coming in.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:12

Yeah, thanks for having me. I I really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you.