French toast adventures

One of these days we will all be proper doctors. But let's face it, who during their years at medical school has not had the occasional 'most embarrassing moment' that they will remember for life? Let me share mine with you.

My best friend and I were sent away from Sheffield to a district general hospital to do our paediatrics attachment. We had heard that we would get great teaching and wonderful accommodation at this hospital. New, big, ensuite rooms with phone and television. All this, plus a fully equipped kitchen. Nice. My kind of hospital. Or so I thought, until some supreme power in the NHS conspired against us and we got stuck in the old, unrefurbished block with the peculiar shower and the odd kitchen. Typical.

Being absolutely pathetic cooks, and now with the excuse of having a poorly equipped kitchen, we decided to be practical and not cook during our placement. Although the solution kept us fairly content for a while, after a month of living on pot noodles and frozen pizzas we were starting to suffer from malnutrition. We decided that perhaps the kitchen was not that bad, and perhaps we could experiment with cooking just this once. So we marched into the kitchen armed with 18 eggs and two bags of bread, and resolved French toast would be dinner. Beat a few eggs, soak the bread and fry it. Not exactly quantum physics. If you know what you're doing that is.

You see, just because it looks easy to cook does not mean that it will not produce a mushroom cloud or taste like coal or both. When we intelligently opened the kitchen door instead of the window to get rid of some of the smoke we set off the fire alarm, causing a procession of doctors, nurses, and midwives to evacuate the accommodation. Shortly afterwards the manager and security were summoned to the scene. And, if this was not enough humiliation, within minutes three fire trucks arrived.

The firemen jumped out of their trucks, rushed to the kitchen, and found a burnt piece of toast welded to an old pan.

I shall never forget the words the chief fireman directed at us after our cooking ordeal. Instead of giving us a lecture he said in a fatherly tone: "Were you going to eat only bread for your supper? Next time at least go for a carry out for crying out loud!|"

Marcela Castillo-Rama, final year medical student, University of Sheffield
Email: mda96mc@sheffield.ac.uk


studentBMJ 2001;09:357-398 October ISSN 0966-6494