Oh yes, folks, it happens.

On more than one occasion during the execution of my professional duties, I encountered violent outbursts from patients. I have even had a hefty chunk of well-formed faeces with a cup full of foul-smelling urine from a dehydrated patient hurled at me during my days working in a Psychiatric Unit.

I will not even begin to share the constant verbal insults (sometimes with expletives) I have received from callous patients in my daily duties. In all these instances, I take my stride and remain calm. Illness can sometimes bring out the worst in all of us. It is all part of the job.

The ‘slap episode’, which I now find comical, that I still vividly recollect happened only a few months ago.

I was in the Surgery Department, and we were doing a ward round in the Male Surgical Ward.

We entered the said patient’s isolation room and went through the motions.

A brief history of the patient; he was a gentleman in his early twenties admitted with extensive lower body burns involving the lower abdomen, penile shaft, scrotum and both lower limbs (especially the right thigh).

When he was born, labour was difficult for the mother. Consequentially, he developed Cerebral Palsy due to a lack of oxygen to his brain during delivery and got prone to Epileptic fits ever since.

He had one such fit, fell into an open fire and sustained the burns described above. In addition, he had Intellectual Impairment, so he had comprehension and communication deficits.

If that was not enough, the little embers of his mother tongue he managed to converse in were alien to me. In other words, even though he could not articulate at a level commensurate with his age (in his language), I, as his doctor, was even more infantile in his tongue.

On that day, during the ward round, we discovered that he had developed paraphimosis. In paraphimosis, the foreskin fails to retract to its natural position (covering the head of the penis). Instead, a tight band of tissue forms at the neck of the penis and causes swelling.

Usually, we perform the Dundee technique to relieve this painful urological emergency. This procedure involves poking holes into the swollen head of the penis, draining the excess fluid out and pulling back up the foreskin.

Sadly, the burden of performing this painful procedure fell on my shoulders. The most senior surgical team member on that day so happened to be heavily gravid (there was a chance she would go into labour during any of these ward rounds, so I also had to keep an eye on her).

She decided (and rightfully so) to delegate to herself the safer role of assisting in restraining the patient’s right hand. As I said, I remember the episode with laser-sharp clarity.

I injected the necessary pain-numbing and lightly-sedating drugs through our patient’s intravenous cannula. We then waited for him to give in to the powers of pharmacology.

As soon as he fell into a light sleep, I cleaned his glans penis (head of the esteemed male organ) and began poking it with a needle.

Lo and behold!

My pensive manoeuvrings were interrupted by a sharp ringing sound in my ears (tinnitus)! The patient’s right hand had liberated itself from my pregnant superior’s delicate grasp and found its reflexive trajectory towards my face.

He had slapped me!

I was momentarily dazzled and found all strength in me not to let out an avalanche of curses on both my heavily pregnant boss and the patient.

I politely asked for a chair for my binate superior (the doctor and her unborn child) to relieve themselves of their duty.

The chair came, my pregnant and apologetic senior slumped into it, an intern nurse took over the restraining duties, and I continued the procedure in partial deafness.

Ladies and gentlemen, that slap was STRONG!

Even now, when I recall that story, my left ear starts ringing, and the left side of my face begins to burn and tingle.

What is the moral of the story, you may ask?

I am used to being slapped and ridiculed while executing my duties.

My core duty is to glorify my Father.

I am well-trained.

Nothing and no one will deter me.