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Dr Joanna Thirsk (1989 - 1999) has been appointed to the position of team doctor on the 48th South African National Antarctic Expedition co-ordinated by the South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP) and has written from the Sanae base in the Antarctica
FROM SOWETO TO SANAE
By Dr. Joanna Thirsk (St. Mary’s School 1989-1999)
Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion
-Apsley Cherry-Garrard, 1921
I remember the night I decided to pursue a career in medicine. During my Grade 12 year at St. Mary’s,
I spent a night in the trauma unit of Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (CHBH) in order to use the
experience as material for my final English prepared oral examination. It was during the early hours
of a Saturday morning in the busy surgical emergency admissions area, also known as “the pit,” that
I knew I wanted to become a doctor. After completing my MBChB at the University of Cape Town in
2005 while heading up the health sector of the Students’ Health and Welfare Centres Organisation, which provides clinical services in under-resourced communities, I did indeed return to the largest hospital in the world to do my year of internship. The time included a four month rotation through the department of trauma surgery. That year fostered within me a love for trauma and emergency medicine as well as its execution in the context of extreme circumstances. After my year at CHBH, I returned to Cape Town to fulfill a bursary obligation and while there, a little more than a year after completing my internship and while working in Groote Schuur Hospital’s trauma unit, I was led to apply for the position of team doctor on the 48th South African National Antarctic Expedition co-ordinated by the South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP). South Africa was one of the original twelve signatory countries who signed the Antarctic treaty in 1959 and therefore boasts a presence of fifty years on the continent. The expedition meant fourteen months away from home, but I knew it was a season that would come once and I knew I had to jump at the chance realising that the world would still be there for me upon my return.
Ninety-eight percent of Antarctica is covered by ice and there are no permanent residents. I am currently stationed at SANAE IV, South Africa’s Antarctic research station. My job entails looking after the mental and physical health of the overwintering team. The base is located on top of a flat-topped nunatak, a rocky outcrop surrounded by the glacial ice sheet, called Vesleskarvet which is one hundred and sixty-three kilometres from the edge of the ice shelf in Queen Maud Land, Eastern Antarctica. Antarctica, on average, is the highest, coldest, driest, windiest continent and boasts the world’s lowest recorded temperature ever of -89.2°C. I am one of ten team members who are overwintering here. We are completely isolated from the rest of the world for close to a year and I am the only woman. My expedition started in Cape Town in November, 2008 with two months of training, both on an individual as well as a team level. Without the availability of any allied medical support down here, I needed training in the fields of dentistry and radiology. The whole team underwent training from firefighting to heavy vehicle and crane operation as well as climbing and cooking. On 23 December last year we departed for Antarctica aboard the SA Agulhas along with about sixty to seventy summer personnel who would be involved with operation logistics, base maintenance, air transportation and scientific research. After a two week voyage across the Southern ocean, the busy takeover season spanned another six to seven weeks. I took over the role of medical doctor from my predecessor and after a visit from the Minister of Science and Technology, SANAP’s director and the Director-General of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, who all flew in by air for a VIP visit, the ten of us were left alone.
And so the seasons changed and summer has now turned into winter with nearly twenty-four hours of darkness. I am writing this piece just after celebrating the winter solstice, the day when the sun is farthest away from us but is about to start its return journey. During the winter months, there is no chance of evacuation even if a major emergency is to occur. It has been said there is more chance of rescue from a space station than from here. The base is large and comfortable and raised on stilts to limit snow deposition, but when something goes wrong we have to deal with it ourselves. There is, however, a fully fledged operating theatre, hospital, dental area and X-ray facilities. We shovel snow and ice into a snow melter to make water, three diesel engines generate our electricity and we are issued with enough food to last us two years or more in the event we cannot be fetched. As the doctor, I am also in charge of nutrition at the base. We are often faced with extreme weather conditions and sometimes winds of over two hundred kilometres per hour and temperatures as low as -40°C. But being down here during the winter also affords one the privilege of seeing the aurora australis or “southern lights” which we saw three days after our midwinter celebrations. The upcoming summer months are well awaited and will bring not only sunlight but a chance to go on field trips, to climb and to experience this great ice continent to its fullest. I look forward to that.
Once back in South Africa, I plan on specialising in emergency medicine with a view to eventually becoming a paediatric emergency physician. My career choice has allowed me to pursue travel and exploration and for that I am grateful. There is still today a great shortage of women in the science fields and the lack of women both in the summer and winter Antarctic teams (less than ten percent) attests to this. I encourage all women that may be inclined to do so to enter into a medical career for the possibilities are endless. The beautiful mix of humanities and science that it offers is one not readily found elsewhere.
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