Random Musings of a Disorderly Mind

Have you ever woken up wondering what the day will bring? If this includes fishing around inside someone’s intestines, being sent photos of bodily fluids, or even pretending to be dead, then you may just happen to be a surgeon. If it includes retrieving arrows, knives, and other foreign bodies from various anatomical locations, then you may be a trauma surgeon. If it also includes rescuing patients from spitting monks and overdosing pharmacists, then you probably work as a doctor in Southeast Asia.

From the relative safety of a 1970s UK medical school to the extremes of modern-day Cambodia, enter the world of funny, sad, baffling, and, at times, unbelievable encounters with patients, teachers, and colleagues over five decades.

Simon Stock was born in Birmingham but moved to the Newcastle-upon-Tyne after entering medical school. He trained and worked as a surgeon in the NHS throughout the Northeast for 20 years before moving to the Isle of Man in 2001 and finally to Cambodia in 2012 where he continues to work as a volunteer surgeon. He is married with a daughter and three delightful grandchildren.