Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Sydney-Nova Scotia-Canada

I arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on an overcast and bitterly cold day. Nova Scotia has bitter winters and heavy snowfalls, which I would touch upon later. Wahid a classmate from my medical school and leading member of our study circle in Karachi worked as a psychiatrist in a hospital in the town. He had helped me in getting the job in Sydney and had come to receive me at the Airport. He told me that he had not been able to get out of a commitment to pick up a Pakistani and drop him at a hotel. We had to wait for a little while for the man’s flight to arrive. On the way to the hotel we started talking of Pakistan. At the time Bhutto, aping his military predecessors , had sacked several hundred government employees, with out due process of law, though he had severely castigated Ayub for doing so. One of my closest friends had fallen under the axe. The man from Pakistan made a remark how the army had messed up the country and how Bhutto Sahib was trying to rehabilitate the economy, administration and public image. That started me off. I condemned Bhutto in no uncertain terms and dwelt on his political dishonesty, opportunism, ingrate nature-he had called Ayub uncle and before that had written an absolutely sycophantic letter to Iskander Mirza- and on his infamous role in the break up of Pakistan. Our fellow passenger squirmed uncomfortably, but did not say a word. Wahid nudged me, but I carried on.
After decanting the passenger my friend mildly chided me for my tactless out burst. The man was a high functionary of Bhutto’s party and was visiting Canada as the head of an official goodwill mission. When he told me the name I gasped. He was the head of Bhutto’s party in Hyderabad Sindh and was the very person who had extracted a heavy sum of my money from my friend for a promise to get him reinstated-of course with out doing it. Wahid had the good grace to exhibit his feelings of outrage and promised me that he will not take the man around as he had planned and to advise the community of the chicanery of the power brokers in Pakistan. As a result the man was hit with a barrage of hostile questions.
I took a flight to Sydney the next day. The younger brother of my employer, Dave Guam, received me. He (the brother) was a member of the provincial assembly and had been a minister in the previous government. I was going up in the world! He dropped me off at a hotel and promised to take me to a bank and car dealership the next day. The hotel was nearly empty but the dining room offered fairly decent food. They recommended lobster. I leant later why. It was a cottage industry.
Dave presented himself as promised bright and early the nest morning. We went to the bank first. The manger was effusive and asked me if I wanted a loan. I named a figure. He seemed disappointed, so I hastened to reassure him that I had brought some cash from England and gave him the money to open an account with. He looked more surprised and explained that with persons who had “excellent” references, he opened account with the loan bank gave them. It was now my turn to be taken aback. I was used to the banks in the UK and Pakistan where they had yet to shed their old money lender inhibitions. On the way to a car dealer my escort told me that I had asked for too small an amount of loan .
We went to several car show rooms. North American cars used to be enormous. They seemed to be cheaper by British standards. I finally chose Ford Maverick and gave them a check for a hundred dollars. They promised to deliver the vehicle at my employer’s office the next day.
Apartment hunting was the next item on the agenda. We decided on a one-bedroom apartment about a mile from my work place. On presentation of a month’s rent in advance and signature of lease papers, the agent handed the key over to me. A call to the phone company elicited a promise to activate the line and install a phone set if I would wait for them tomorrow between 8.00 and 9.00 am.
Dave took me shopping for bed, mattress, sheets, towels, toiletries, pots, pans, cutlery and grocery. It was smooth sailing as in other places. He finally took me to the clinic (office), introduced me to the staff and dropped me back to the hotel late in the afternoon, all with in a matter of about six hours. (One would wish ministers in the sub-continent worked with half as much efficiency).
The next three days were spent in settling down and orientation at work.
Sydney was a small and economically depressed town. Besides a few lobster and shrimp farms, which provided subsistence living for many families, there was little economic activity. The farms on the seashore were a sight. They occupied tens of acres, but were owned by large firms. A few small farmers made a valiant attempt to compete and survived because of the high quality of their catch. It had been a busy mining town, but they had run out of coal a long time ago. It was too out of the way to be an attractive tourist area. A jail and the medical establishment, consisting of two general hospitals and a long-term psychiatrist facility were the main employers. It boasted of one shopping street, a police station, a post office, two schools, several eating-houses, a few car dealerships and plenty of bars. Unemployment was high and alcoholism was rampant.
There was surprisingly little crime. You could say the population was too indolent to make the effort. A native Indian reservation was an hour’s drive away. An airport and a seaport were shared with another, a rather smaller town thirty miles away, called Glace Bay. The airport received two flights a day, one incoming and the other outgoing. An average of ten to twelve ships per week called at the port.
Both the towns, Sydney and Glace Bay, were in a region called Cape Breton, an island off the main Nova Scotia land mass. Besides the towns, which had a population of thirty-five and twenty five thousand respectively, the island was dotted with several villages and hamlets of a few hundred to a few thousand souls. Total population of Cape Breton was one hundred thousand. A causeway built across a narrow strait connected it with the rest of Nova Scotia. The area was quite scenic with forests, trails, lakes, and hills, wild animals with good huntin’ and fishin’. A particularly scenic trail was named Cabot after some explorer of the name. It was about hundred and twenty miles long, and was quite famous among hikers and tourists. But it was about one hundred fifty miles from Sydney so its popularity did not help cape Breton. Sydney was the “Capital” of Cape Breton and all the sub-provincial offices; courts and the main medical facilities were based there. Patients from outlying cottage hospitals were referred to the medical facilities in Sydney. Complicated cases went to Hospitals in Halifax, the Capital of Nova Scotia. The city of about three hundred fifty thousand souls was three hundred miles away. It boasted a university, medical school, a busy port and some industries. The total population of Nova Scotia was less than a million.
The office I had engaged to work in was called Guam clinic after its founder Abraham (Abe). Guam . I still remember it was at 820, Victoria road, Sydney. Abe was a qualified surgeon but practiced every specialty except Orthopedics, Ophthalmology and Ear/Nose-Throat. He was around seventy years old, but very well maintained and worked from seven am to nine pm almost non-stop six days a week. His younger brother Dave also worked with him. He was a surgeon too, but kept himself to his specialty and short hours.
I had never come across a set up like the clinic. Abe employed several family practitioners. They were all foreigners. One was an Englishman Dr Cardew, who had been with the clinic for several years. Others were from the sub-continent. An odd British graduate joined the crew from time to time but left soon afterwards. Doctors from the sub-continent did not have as much ease in relocation but they also left after completing the year they had signed on far. I soon learnt the reason for the short stay. We worked from eight am to six pm, with half an hour for lunch six days a week and were on call once every three or four nights, depending on how many Doctors were available to share the work. Abe and Dave did not take night calls. Call started at seven pm, an hour after a full days work. Our cars had been fitted with radiophones. An answering service would forward patient’s address to us. We would move from house to house with out interruption till about two am when it would slacken off a bit. One would be lucky to snatch two or three hours of sleep. Call would end at eight am, and we were expected to return to work at eleven am.
For the first few weeks I had great difficulty in finding houses in unfamiliar localities. I do not have a good sense of direction any way. Their unorthodox fashion of marking homes, at least in the indigent areas where most of our patients lived, was not any help either. A house marked 32 may have number 57 next to it. I promise I am not exaggerating.
It was my first experience of heavy snow. In the south of England, we seldom had more than two or three inches and I did not have to drive through it. In Sydney I used to get stuck quite often and kindly passers by would push my car out. In due course they stated calling me the doctor who does not know how to drive! Once in the middle of a blizzard I missed a turn and drove over railway tracks. While trying to decide what to do next I spied an engine shunting towards me and hastily got out. The engine stopped just short of the car and decanted several curious on lookers. One of them exclaimed it is that doctor and all guffawed. They comforted me and lifted the car and put it on the road. I was accosted by gleeful grins for weeks afterwards.
By the next winter I had gained a lot of confidence in my skills in driving over snow. About noon one day the radio announced that a very heavy storm was on the way and to stay put. I had finished my work in the hospital and wanted to go home. Nurses tried to dissuade me. I told them that my apartment was only a mile away and I had a powerful car. I drove in nearly blinding snow, congratulating myself all the while on my fortitude when in sight of the apartment building the car simply would not move. I got out and walked to my apartment through waist high snow.
The next morning the car was not there. Neighbors told me that vehicles abandoned during snowstorms were towed away.
Guam had organized the clinic on the technique of an assembly line. During regular hours he saw most of the patents. Dr Cardew had the next heaviest load. There were about ten cubicles, all equipped with syringes filled with penicillin. Abe would move from one room to another, with a pad in his right hand (he was left handed) and start scribbling on a piece of paper before the patient had finished the first sentence. He would then, with a preoccupied look on his face, place the stethoscope on the patient’s back, only rarely on the chest and hand the note to the patient. On the average it took all of two minutes. The note may have the name of a drug or two, but more often would have an order for x-ray of the kidney, gall bladder or some other part of the body. The reason for ordering x-rays was that if it showed any abnormality, he would perform a surgical procedure. If the report were normal, he would simply tell the patient not to worry, regardless of persistence of symptoms.
Dave once gleefully, and with out a hint of self-consciousness, told me the following story. Once his brother had two women in a room. He gave a shot of penicillin to the older one. She protested; her younger companion was the patient. Abe gave her an injection too! It may be anecdotal, but reflected the attitude the brothers Guam had towards the practice of medicine.
They got away with it because there was no quality control, no state inspection; no peer review and mal-practice cases were rare . But there was another factor. Before Canada introduced national health care, Guam had treated a lot of patients gratis. They returned the compliment by making as many visits as permissible under law and overlooking the vagaries of his methods. There was no appointment system. The waiting area used to be full of elderly women and men. They appeared to treat the room as sort of chat cum social club.
Shortly after starting work, a patient was sent to me from the seaport. He was from Bangla Desh and desperately wanted to get off the ship. They were treating him like an animal and the work was beyond his physical capacity. When he learnt that I was from Pakistan and a Muslim too, he begged me for help, in the name of God and his prophet. He had back pain. I was initialing inclined towards the belief that he was malingering, because he was laying it thick on Islamic brotherhood and our common heritage rather than on his suffering. He even went to the extent of telling me that he was pro-Pakistan and cursed Sheikh Mujeeb vociferously. It was rather funny because for my benefit, he was holding forth in broken Urdu. I was sympathetic to him because I have vestiges of national chauvinism . I examined him with special care and admitted him into the General Hospital. He did have signs of compression of nerves and acute disc herniation.
Under ordinary circumstances I would have operated on him expeditiously. But I had a lingering doubt in my mind. Then the Captain of his Ship called and demanded that I release him as the man was faking. I asked him which medical school had he attended. He told me not to be funny. He had had enough experience with men to be able to say with confidence when a man had a serious back problem. I told him that the decision was mine to make and not to call me again. He threatened physical violence and report to the authorities. I hung up but as a preemptive measure, called the hospital administrator, my employer and the police. I also ordered an urgent Myelogram .
About an hour later the Captain barged into my office. He was a livid, bearded giant and was drunk too. No body had hung up on him, he said, and offered to make me swallow my own teeth. I told him that he was a stupid blood sucking agent of capitalism and a lackey of imperialism. I don’t think he understood what I was saying, except the word stupid. He roared. I, a bloody black, had dared to call him stupid. I am not a rash person and not particularly brave either. I also think that prudence is the better part of valor. I was expecting and hoping that some one would come rushing in to my rescue. The wild man of the sea had caused enough commotion.
The man rose to his full height, rolled his sleeves up, and with clenched fists moved towards me with the rolling gait of a seaman. In desperation I picked up a plaster cutter. (It is a heavy instrument shaped like a pair of scissors). I was behind a heavy desk and tried to reassure myself with the thought that he could not get at me easily. The only tactical problem was that if I swung the cutter at him prematurely he might be able to grab it. Then I would be done for.
My guardian angel, a colleague and a true blue English man, Dr Cardew came in. He grabbed the man by the tail of his jacket and in icy tones told him “ we can’t have all that here”. The effect of the pure English accent was dramatic. The color of his skin must have helped too. The bearded bandit seemed to deflate in front of my eyes and stammered. "He called me stupid". Dr Cardew told him that he had worked as a GP near London docks, and could offer better adjectives, but refrained from doing so due to the mixed nature of the company. A few secretaries and nurses had joined the audience. (Later on I asked Dr Cardew what had taken him so long. He had called the police first).
That episode sent my stock shooting to the sky. Not only was I a medical genius, but a man of great physical and moral courage. I had not been daunted by a furious man twice my size; no doubt well versed in brawling- he was a seaman. I had great moral courage too. I had stood by my patient though being on a fixed salary, had nothing to gain by another operation. (Little they knew how I had felt before good Dr Cardew burst in). It seemed I could do no wrong in Sydney.
The police arrived shortly after and took the captain away. I heard later that he was dismissed from service.
My patient’s myelogram showed a huge disc herniation. I took him to operating room as an emergency. He did quite well after surgery, and was immensely grateful to me. In thrall of my radicalism and nationalism, I was saved from making a less than honest medical decision. I had decided that if the myelogram were inconclusive I would still keep him in the hospital and transfer him to the medical school Hospital in Halifax by air ambulance.
Sydney had two hospitals; one Sydney General, run by the state had two hundred beds. Except for Neuro and heart surgery, nearly all specialties were represented. The town had lost its orthopedic surgeon several years before I arrived on the scene. All bone, joint and spine cases had to be sent to Halifax. Not all patients could afford to go, so they simply put up with it and suffered. The other hospital was run by a catholic charity. It was called St Rita’s and catered to the well heeled. We had few patients there. I would only visit the hospital occasionally for a minor surgical procedure.
I had a rather startling experience in the General hospital. One evening I had gone to the x-ray department to look at a few films of patients I had referred there. The sight of a patient lying on a stretcher struck me. He had his head bent at an abnormal angle. The man did not belong to our group. But the x-ray technician who saw more of me than all other doctors put together (they refrained from looking at films and only read reports) saw the look on my face and asked me to look at his x-rays. To my acute horror, it showed a high fracture dislocation of the cervical spine (the kind superman had) which if moved improperly could result in paralysis from neck down (as happened to the superman). I immediately put two sand bags around his head, asked him not to move it at all and called his doctor. The doctor initially feigned displeasure that I had looked at the x-ray of his patient with out a referral. I told him that I had done him a favor and if he did not like what I had done, I would gladly remove the sand bags from around the patient’s head, leave him to move it, transect the spinal cord and get paralyzed. It would all be on the doctor’s head. That properly put the fear of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in him (he was a devout Catholic). He begged me to wait for him in the hospital. I obliged.
He practically ran to the hospital. The poor man did not know what to do- in his panic he actually put the film on the viewing box upside down. He would not have been able to make head or tail of it even he had it the right side up. I had heard stories about the man. Now the poor man was properly flustered and asked me if I could fix it. I told him I could if I had a neuro-surgeon to advise me. The good man nearly lost it. How was he going to get the neuro-surgeon from three hundred miles away to advise me? I suggested he call the surgeon. The neuro surgeon asked that the patient be put on a plane with me by his side. But the flight for the day had left. An ambulance journey over the hills and vales in the middle of the night over a route under several feet of snow was not a practical proposition. The neurosurgeon asked me if I would be to insert calipers* on the man’s skull and reduce the dislocation while he gave me instructions on phone. I agreed to the highly unorthodox procedure as long as the patient understood and took the responsibility of consequences in writing. The GP thought I was being overly fussy. The patient had no choice and what the H. did he know nay way. I felt like telling him a H. of a lot more than he did, but forbore to do so.
Even after passage of over three decades, the following two hours are still vivid in my mind. I was literally sweating. What gave me the fortitude to carry on was the experience I had of performing complicated procedures with out supervision or prior on hands training while working for the politician-orthopedic surgeon back in England in 1968. Presence of a dozen or so on lookers, including several pretty nurses one of whom I was rather keen on, made me behave with a nonchalance I did not feel. She was a rather ethereal beauty with ash blonde hair and Nordic good looks. Coming from a good family she was sophisticated too and had been lukewarm to my advances. I followed the instructions on phone, and had an x-ray made after each maneuver any of which could have damaged the spinal cord irreparably. After a while the dislocation reduced with an audible click. My heart started beating again and I resumed breathing too. Getting a firm hold on myself I calmly announced, “Mission accomplished”. (Bush’s infamous claim was far in future yet). There was a round of applause from my now quite impressed and admiring audience. The ravishing beauty offered to go out with me the next evening. After a token demurral I agreed. All the tension had after all been worth it.
The patient stayed in the hospital for eight weeks. Finally it was time to remove the calipers and put him in a body cast. I still have his photo in the cast.
Believe it or not a few months later I had another identical case. But it was old hat now. I called the neuro-surgeon and went through the exercise with out a sense of exhilaration I had before. By now I was regarded as a near genius and could pick and chose my dates. The Nordic goddess had become quite pliant; more than I would rather want her to be.
I had had four years of first-rate orthopedic training, but the local hospitals would not give me full surgical privileges , because the Royal college of Surgeons in Canada had not granted me eligibility to appear at heir specialty examination. I was British trained and Royal College of surgeons in Canada, granted eligibility to British but not to medical graduates from the sub-continent, though the two had identical training, and qualifications.
Canadians, unlike their American counter parts did discriminate on grounds of race and worse found legal backing. Dr Guam had insisted that I be allowed to perform surgery. They had reluctantly allowed me to perform surgical procedures under supervision of Dave Guam who was himself not a qualified surgeon and had full privileges because a) he was a native, b) the younger brother of the owner of the only clinic in town. He had had little exposure to orthopedic surgery, and was in no position to advise me much less supervise me.
The area had lost its only orthopedic surgeon many years ago. I had a lot of referrals from all over Cape Breton On many a day I would operate on several discs, complicated fractures in addition to dealing with lesser emergencies from the out patients (ER in the USA). I spent nearly the whole day in the operating room and was happy to carry the load, as I could escape dealing with coughs and colds in the office.
I was making a lot of money for him, much more than I would in the office, but Abe Guam still insisted that I take night calls as frequently as others did. I felt put upon, and protested but he would not budge. I was not in a position to quit; I was preparing for the USA licensing examination. But work was not leaving much time to study. I finally told Guam that if a patient was sick enough to request a house call in the middle of the night, he was bad enough to be in a hospital. He did not like that a bit. We had a heated discussion. I stuck to my guns. He finally conceded, as he did not want to let me go either. Surgical procedures were worth lot more than nocturnal house calls. As a gesture of good will I consented to sleep in the hospital when on duty so as to be on hand when one of our patients arrived. Patients took the hint and when I was on call waited to attend the office the next morning.
South Asians, mainly Indians and Pakistanis, constituted a prominent section of the society. Besides Doctors, they included a few teachers and scientists in their ranks. In Cape Breton their number was not large enough to support separate circles of Indians and Pakistanis. In Halifax they usually had segregated gatherings, though they socialized with each other on festive occasions and weddings etc. I could make only a few visits to Halifax. It was too far to drive back and forth in the truncated day and a half weekend, I was allowed.
It was in Halifax that I first heard of Halal bread. I was intrigued. How do you slaughter bread, in Halal or Haram way, I asked my friend Dr Khalil Ahmad . He laughed; they look at the list of ingredients and make sure no lard was used. In England alcoholic drinks were freely served in all Muslim “Desi” parties. Not so in Halifax.
We had a similar variegated South Indian crowd in Sydney-Glace Bay. One note worthy character was a surgeon; quite well trained and highly thought of by the natives. He was the only Doctor who would handle complicated cases and would readily take over other surgeon’s complications. In 1973, the year I arrived in Sydney, the only daily of the region declared him “Man of the Year”.
He, however, had a problem. He had tried so hard to assimilate himself, that he had developed a severe identity problem. He was married to an American girl who was a terrible snob. He never spoke Urdu even when no natives were around. I asked him once if he could speak the language. He made a face and came back with “thora thora aata hai”- I can a little. This from a man who was born and brought up in Lucknow, the cradle and pride of Urdu!! He had spent his youth in Karachi, which boasted that overwhelming majority of its population was Urdu speaking. (I later learnt that his wife had run away with a porter who used to assist me in plaster-cast work)
I, however, found a jewel of a man in a British trained Indian surgeon, Dr Chaturvedi . He was quite senior to me. In fact he had participated in the 1942 Quit India Movement and had lost precious time in his medical studies. He combined several apparently contradictory elements in his philosophy. He was secular in the Nehru mold, religious in Gandhi style, national-linguistic chauvinist like a good Indian, traditionalist like a good Brahmin and liberal in his over all outlook. He was passionately fond of Indian classical music (He was born in Banaras and brought up in Ajmer. The city is known for the Shrine of the most revered Sufi-Saint of India Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti . During the Saint’s annual celebration, my new friend’s father hosted both Hindus and Muslims in his home. Chat Ji, short for Chaturvedi, as we used to call him affectionately, had married a lady who came from an even more liberal background. Her brother and sister had Muslim spouses.
Chat Ji used to arrange a flag raising ceremony on India’s independence day, August 14. It was a purely Indian affair. He invited me to it. Some Indians from Gujarat and Indian Punjab objected. I was a Pakistani. Chat Ji tried to reassure them, that it was simply a gesture of good will. When they persisted in their protests, he shot back that we (he and I) spoke the same language! They were incensed. They called him a Muslim lover. He in rage, called them fanatics and their mother tongue gibberish. A bitter argument ensued. But Chat Ji insisted that if I were not included in the list of guests, he would cancel the whole affair. Such was his prestige that he got his way.
One of his sons wanted to marry a white girl. He came on the heavy traditional father and packed the boy off to India. When we reminded him that his own brother and sister in law had married Muslims, he laconically said “but they were Indian”. We became close friends. I called his wife “Bhoji” a term of affection in India for an elder brother-friends wife. I was a frequent visitor to their Glace Bay home. They were a very sociable couple. They had guests all the time.
A few years later he moved to NY. I once went to see him with my eldest daughter, Eram who was then about 8 or 9. Bhoji had extended herself. A large table was groaning under a dozen dishes- all vegetarian. My daughter told me in a stage whisper that there was no meat dish. I tried to shush her. But Chat Ji had heard her cry of distress and sent his son to get fried chicken. It was the first time that a meat dish had crossed their threshold!
Chat Ji retired a few years later. His ambition was to live in a Kutya (a mud/bamboo sticks hut) on a riverbank in India, as ancient Indians were wont to do in their old age. Bhoji disagreed strongly. She insisted that he buy an apartment for her in a fashionable area in Mombai and arrange a suitable living allowance for her. He could then spend the rest of his days among the Devis , who, once they had learnt, that he was a Surgeon and had worked in Canada and the USA, would certainly make sure to visit him. They ended up buying two apartments, one in Mumbai and the other in Dehli, both in posh areas. To the best of my knowledge Chat Ji never got his Kutya.
I have mulled long over inclusion of a few delectable bits about another remarkable character in Glace Bay. I had actually met him first in Swansea, Wales in the UK. We had worked in the same hospital.
I have something in my demeanor-personality or manner of expression that friends and acquaintances confide in me and solicit my advice. This Doctor told me that his parents were not getting him married as expeditiously as he would like. I was much more of a rebel and radical in those days and advised him to tell his parents that unless they got him spliced right away, he would find his own mate.
We lost contact with each other, till I found him living with two wives, one Asian and one White, under the same roof in CANADA! He told every one that the Asian woman was his cousin, which she actually was. I complimented him on his guts. People generally have a time of it, dealing with one. Here he was living calmly with two, doing his bidding. The white one, of a farmer stock, did the housework, looked after her babies and those of the woman she shared her husband with. The Pakistani girl, more educated and sophisticated, looked after the office and the practice. He blamed me for his un-orthodox situation. His father had disdainfully rejected his ultimatum. He, incensed, had married a Dutch girl while doing a locum in Holland. On his next visit to Pakistan his father had got him married to his (father’s) brother’s daughter. I commiserated with him, but reassured him that he was following at least one tradition of Islam.
Canadian Government could not get him on a bigamy charge. The other woman had told them that she was his cousin, and only did office work. “We should thank our stars that in the west, you cannot charge a person for sleeping with a consenting adult, in or out of wedlock”. I am quoting him verbatim or very close to it.
Besides the two wives, he kept a goat and several chicken in his house. The poor European wife took care of them too. It was contrary to regulations. But the officials were his patients. Not only was he a general practitioner, but also doubled as the only anesthesiologist in the town, so it was prudent to keep on his right side. He was given an exemption on medical grounds that his babies needed goat milk. The chicken were simply ignored.
The man had another weakness, which was to be his undoing. He would take extra-legal advantage of the murky areas of finance regulations. He sent money to his parents in Pakistan, ostensibly for their support and deducted it from his taxes as allowed under Canadian Law. But he actually used the money for investment in real state-in his own name.
All would have been well, except that he sued a woman for damages in a car accident. She had to sell her house to settle the claim. She was a widow living on a small pension. A public appeal was made to him to forego the punitive damages .He ignored the call. One can’t get away with such mercenary behavior in small towns, especially if one is a foreigner. Some of the local tax officials were signatories to the public appeal. They felt the snub acutely and not only scrutinized his tax return more sedulously but also went to the extent of asking a reciprocating detective agency in Pakistan to report on the utilization of the moneys he sent there. Having procured all the proofs they needed, they got the man convicted of tax fraud and had him put in jail. A heavy fine was also levied on him.
Now comes the really juicy part. He told the court that he could not pay the fine, as he would have no income in the jail. His local Hospital was also in a fix. As noted above he was their only anesthesiologist. Between the Jail administration, the Hospital, Taxmen and the Judge it was arranged that he would be permitted to work. He would be taken to the hospital from the jail every day in a police car and brought back after work. He told me later that he developed quite a following among his jail mates. His patients implored the powers that be to let him reopen his office. They did, enabling him to resume full time work. He totally lacked self-consciousness and gleefully told all comers, and me that he had free board and lodging, a uniformed chauffer and an official car!
In mid 1973 I appeared for the USA licensing examination. During my stay in NY for the test I had arranged an interview at the renowned Hospital for Special Surgery. They offered me a fellowship in joint replacements. I was lucky enough to pass the test and in due course, got a license to practice medicine in NY State and started applying for jobs and private practices. For a long time I got no response. Towards the end of the year I got a spate of telephone calls. They all wanted to know when could I visit them for an interview? So much time had passed since I had written to these places that I could not, on the spur of the moment recall, what kind of situation I had applied for in a particular place. Once when I was rushed, I became rather testy and asked the lady requesting me to visit her Hospital “when did I write to you”? She mentioned a date several months prior to her call. I asked her what had suddenly woken her up. She was from Brooklyn NY and shot back; was I was interested in an interview or not. I promised to get back to her. I visited many places and was received with kindness, respect and consideration.
A few places stick to memory. One was in Minnesota. It was winter. I noticed electric outlets in the parking lot and asked what were they for? I was told that in winter if you don’t plug the car to an outlet it would not start till the next summer! Another practice was in a place called Coldwater in Michigan. They feted me as usual. The next day I was invited to a home for lunch. It was Sunday. When, around noontime, I arrived at the home of my host, a good percentage of my fellow guests were already deep in their cups. They were very worried that they did not have a place of worship for me. I told them that I would pray at home. But one rather fetching lady exclaimed that I should have a specific place on Sundays. I felt like telling her that I would not mind her parlor, but held back in case she consented. I suggested that a room in their church would do fine. The company agreed whole-heartedly.
One of the interviews was at Kingsbrooke Jewish medical Center in Brooklyn NY. Dr Monroe Schneidert the director of the department of orthopedic surgery was British trained and offered me a job. Shortly afterwards I heard from the Hospital for Special Surgery. They were prepared to take me as a fellow in Joint replacements. I did want to work in a prestigious hospital, but they were offering a training job and in Kingsbrooke Jewish I would hold a staff position I finally accepted the position in Brooklyn and have regretted the decision since. A fellowship in Special surgery would have opened all kinds of doors for me.
I gave notice to Dr Guam. He asked me to stay on with him at a much higher salary. I told him it was not money; I wanted to work as a full time orthopedic surgeon. My friends in Glace Bay also offered me a practice. With out a Canadian Royal college certification, I would remain a surgeon by courtesy, not by right.
I paid farewell calls and booked a flight to JFK International Airport. I had little to pack, all my belongings fitted in two suitcases and a trunk. But I was financially in a much better position than I had been when I had left London a year ago.