Author: Putra Vatakal

 James leaned on his pillow enveloped in a (socially distant) cloud of interns and residents as Dr Azlan Sofian walked up to his hospital bed in Shah Alam Hospital. Azlan watched as an intern marked out a large arrow in blue permanent ink on James’ right foot. Then they went through the list of risks […]

 “Periosteal elevator, please.” I croak through the drone of my ventilated suit. Scrub Nurse Erlinawati quickly unwraps a sterile tray and hands over the sharp instrument. Dr Kugan Ramachandran and I frown a few frowning moments, slicing dark red muscle away to reveal gleaming white bone beneath. “Is the power saw ready?” I ask. Bursts […]

Six year old Putra pedalled hard, his tiny fingers gripping the handlebars. The rusty old bicycle chain clanked and rattled. Papa peeped out the window at the noise. “Putra, what are you doing?” Papa asked. It was precisely this question little Putra had been waiting for. Surely his Papa had noticed him loudly pretending to […]

“Okay, on my count,” says the anesthetist. “One. Two. Three. Lift!” – Agus feels weightless for a moment, then he’s lying supine on the operating table in OR No.12. I take a step back to look over Agus’ scans on the large LCD screen in the corner of the room. Dr Amir Firdaus joins me, […]

Deciding to Operate Little boy Putra lived to watch TV. The 1980s: a time of unvetted video violence – with a mud splattered Sylvester Stallone raining bullets into straw-hatted Viet Kong and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grim face torn away to reveal the polished steel terminator within. But what captured my childish attention was the illusions of […]

Eyes half closed, I rose and staggered to the corner of the room where my handphone lay plugged into the wall. “Tinesh here. We’ve got a bit of a situation. “ said Dr Tinesh Sachirthanthan. Grunting into the phone, I pulled on my work clothes, kissed my wife goodnight and gunned the engine of my […]

Aisyah cradled her knee in her hands. Dr Nik Haziman Wan Hamat crouched beside her on the wet grass of the rugby pitch, rummaging in his bag for an ice-pack. “I can carry on, Doc Nik,” Aisyah panted hard as he wrapped her painful knee in a towel and laid on the ice. Drizzle drops […]

Sometime mid October 2020, Dr Sri Kumaran cornered me in the orthopaedic clinic in Sungai Buloh and shot me full of questions that left me puzzled, but a little hopeful. The surge of COVID cases following the Sabah State elections had seen us shut down our surgical services again to make way for the waves […]

Covid log – Day 259: Brisk walk in the crisp morning air. Day breaks. Breakfast and scripture reading with Chuon Yvonne. Stricken man’s friends sit in comforting silence for 7 days and 7 nights. 0730: Traffic heavy but moving on the road to Sungai Buloh Hospital. Clinical duties kick off with a text from SN […]

As schoolboys, my brother Trishul and I came to blows more than once over some sibling squabble or the other. Depending on the movie we had just watched, in the garden, we procured wooden lightsabers – indoors, the choice weapons could well be skin searing leather-belt ‘nunchucks’. One evening, when I was about 15 (and […]