Early in my career as consultant gastroenterologist and general physician, one of the senior physicians admitted a lady in her forties, from a private hospital to the ICU in the public hospital that I worked in, and told me to look after the her.

She had become jaundiced after two halothane anaesthetics given within a few days of each other for gynaecology procedures. In the ICU, I was confronted with a deeply jaundiced lady in stage 4 hepatic coma and fitting intermittently.

The senior physician had already told her family that she was critically ill and was unlikely to survive. Being the days before liver transplantation, I instituted aggressive and some slightly innovative supportive measures for hepatic coma and her seizures, and much to everyone’s surprise, she woke up after a few days and eventually made a complete recovery.

Her liver function tests returned to normal and there was no evidence of structural damage. The last time that I saw her, she was in her seventies and in good health apart from some well controlled hypertension and hyperlipidaemia. This case was a good learning as well as satisfying experience for me.

When I was a medical registrar, one of my consultants was a gastroenterologist. At that time, fibre-optic gastroscopy was still a fairly new technique. Although a fibre-optic gastroscope was available in the hospital, my consultant at that time still preferred to use a gastrocamera to examine the stomach.

This was a fairly rigid instrument and one day he unfortunately perforated a patient while attempting to pass the gastrocamera.

The next time a patient needed a gastric study, the consultant handed me the fibre-optic gastroscope and told me to pass it. I had never passed one before but fortunately I was able to pass it without incident.

Thus began my career as a gastroenterologist. I shall always be grateful to the consultant for steering me along the path of gastroenterology and mentoring me.