There’s something to be said for paper notes—the way reading a hardback beats a Kindle. Of course, that charm vanishes when you remember the consultant’s illegible Mont Blanc scrawl, the ink running from a spilled coffee, or the wrist cramp of racing through a surgical ward round.

F2 in SDEC was mostly fun: a variety of cases, your own consultation room, solid teaching. The admin, however, was diabolical.

Usually, I finished seeing patients at 9 p.m. and slogged through admin until the small hours. That night, I decided to be clever: I’d finish it the next day using my annual leave. Problem: Where to stash the notes overnight? The unlocked filing cabinet in the main office would surely suffice.

I drove home through the mean streets of Birmingham, mildly depressed that 1) I lived there, and 2) I’d be wasting a precious day of holiday chasing 48-hour Holters, echos, and six-week follow-up chest X-rays.

The next morning, bleary-eyed from four hours of sleep, I arrived to find it gone. The bloody filing cabinet had ghosted me. Panic set in. I asked the SDEC sister in charge—subtly, or so I thought—where it had gone.

“Estates took it first thing. To be scrapped,” she said.

Oh, bloody hell.

A frantic search led me to a large grey skip. And there it was, sticking out like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I made sure the coast was clear before diving in. Scrap metal jabbed at me like Edward Scissorhands discovering personal space. Wait—when was my last tetanus booster? 

Finally, like Edmund Hillary, I clambered up the heap and reclaimed the precious notes. I kissed them like they were my own newborn.

“What the f@&! do you think you’re doing?!” The sister gaped, cigarette dangling.

My jaw started to clench.