Medicine can be both fascinating and terrifying.

This statement can be applied equally to those who practise medicine, but also to the ‘lay’ person who observes from afar but eventually, and sadly inevitably, becomes enmeshed in it. Usually as a reluctant patient.

Erik Hagen has been practicing medicine for the last forty odd years. He has been involved in country General Practice, Emergency medicine, Retrieval medicine with the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia and also in motor sport medicine at both the national and international level, especially in the fields of Formula One and World Rallying.

This collection makes up the second volume of short stories, the first being “Imperfect Recollections; Memory Fragments from and Ageing Medico”, published in 2020.

Some of the stories are just that – stories; but some of the subjects are possibly more reflective than the first book, attempting to examine the questions that confront us all.

Perhaps that kind of musing afflicts all of us who have fewer years ahead than behind us or perhaps it is just that we are vain enough to imagine that we have something worth saying.