The most exciting medical job in the world….
With her medical degree in one pocket and her passport in another, Claire has travelled the world, climbing volcanoes, diving in the Caribbean, and crossing the Antarctic ice, chasing her dreams
Claire is an emergency doctor who has been practising since 2015, mainly on Reunion Island. She has unique experience, from medical evacuations in the Pacific, to oil clinics in Africa, and medicine about the scientific expedition ship Marion Dufresne. In her first book entitled Docteur Globetrotter, she shared her adventures combining emergency medicine and travel. Published 2022, it describes emergencies in the Caribbean, medicine aboard the expedition ship, and in an isolated Amazonian rain forest. Her second book, Tour du Monde en blouse blanche, Docteur Globetrotter 2 brings us to three other healthcare destinations.
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Today we’re talking to Claire Lenne who is an emergency care doctor. But she’s had the most exciting and wonderful career. And she’s talking to us from the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. Let’s take you back to the very beginning – what interested you in medicine and this type of medicine?
Claire Lenne: I studied medicine in France at the University of Angers, and after ten years of studying I chose to be emergency doctor because I liked the variety of the job – serious illness, undiagnosed cases, and sometimes very sick people, a very wide range of different illnesses.
DMacA: Where did you train in emergency medicine?
CL: After I graduated I came to Reunion Island, which is a very small French island next to Madagascar and Mauritius and I worked in the emergency room in the public hospital. Very quickly I discovered the many different ways one can work in emergency medicine, and in many different places of the world, and it was very interesting.
DMacA: You’re on the Island of Reunion, which is a really exciting place to begin with but you had this wish to travel the world. Tell us about all the other places you’ve worked in…
CL: I’ve worked in a nuclear plant in China, I’ve worked on scientific boats going very far south in the Indian Ocean. And six months ago, I was in Antarctica on a scientific expedition on the ice. I’ve worked in the oil industry in Nigeria, and in the Gabonese Republic in Africa, in the Caribbean, in South America, and in various different places.
Various interviews with Claire on YouTube (in French)
DMacA: Take us to all these absolutely fascinating step as its so different to what most of us do. First, take us to China.
CL: It was very strange because I arrived at the end of the Covid pandemic so everything was closed. And I arrived during the confinement so I was out in the Government quarantine centre and we had a PCR test nearly every day. And, afterwards I worked in the nuclear plant but my French diploma was not recognized by the Chinese government, so I couldn’t care for the Chinese people, I was there just to look after the expatriates.
DMacA: Was it more or less general practice or was it emergency care?
CL: It was more general practice but if there is a very serious problem, it was very important to know how to deal with such an emergency but, for the most part, it was general medicine.
DMacA: When patients were ill in China, did they go to the Chinese hospital and did you care for them in the Chinese hospital?
CL: Yes, but the Chinese hospital was 100km from the nuclear plant so there wasn’t quick and easy access.
DMacA: You also worked in the Caribbean, which we think of as very luxurious place but it’s not quite as luxurious when you’re working there…
CL: I worked in Martinique and Guadeloupe which are small French islands, and very well known. I worked in the public hospital and we had a very mixed practice dealing with typical emergencies; injuries, breathlessness, and fever for example. But we also needed to be aware of the local culture and sometimes question our beliefs, dealing with local problems like drugs, violence in the family etc. And we lived just next a volcano, which was interesting, wondering if it might erupt but it didn’t happen!
DMacA: Let me ask you about working in Martinique. What was the standard of medicine like in the hospital?
CL: It wasn’t like in Paris! We didn’t have computers in the emergency room, other than for xrays and biologic analysis, so it felt really strange to have to take up a pen and write on paper and to make a copy when the patient was discharged. But, we can do many things with our hands alone we tried to do the best we could, but it wasn’t like Paris.
DMacA: And what about the equipment? You had X-rays, but did you have, MRI, CT scans etc?
CL: Yes, we had all of these. But, sometimes patients needed very technical surgery, and these patients needed to be transferred by plane to Paris. This happened maybe once every two weeks but not very often.
DMacA: You also briefly mentioned volcanoes, which are a particular interest of yours. Tell us how that interest began.
CL: In Reunion Island we have the most active volcano on earth. We share that title with Hawaii, one years it’s us, another its Hawaii. I enjoyed looking at it and could watch it for hours and hours. I wanted to learn more and more about volcanoes, understand about the gas, understand the lava, why it looks so beautiful, what is dangerous and what is not. That’s why I began to study to try to understand and to learn about volcanoes other than mine (in Reunion), and that was why I wanted to go to the Caribbean.
DMacA: And, you took this interest further…
CL: I did a university course in volcanoes. There were evening lessons for adults and it was interesting to learn something other than medicine, and to develop another area of interest.
DMacA: Let’s now take you to South America, tell us, about that experience.
CL: It’s another very different place, French Guyana, which is almost completely covered in forest. And, so another very different place compared to what I knew. I worked deep in the forest in a village on the river bank. Emergencey care was so different. If, for example, a patient had an acute appendix, they needed to take a boat, a small boat on the river, that took seven hours to get to the hospital to have surgery. We had a lot of viral diseases and other illnesses that I wasn’t familiar with like Leishmaniasis or Q fever. I had learned about them but they were very far back in my memory. And there too, there was the impact of the culture and beliefs of the people.
DMacA: How did those beliefs impinge on medicine?
CL: They believed the heart was linked to the body by a rope. When you have a problem, the rope is broken and you go to see the doctor. The men expected that I could repair the rope to restore their health to a good place. It was very strange to try to understand that. And, sometimes they believed in spirits. If you were anxious, afraid, or tired, then maybe a spirit had come to you and you had to go to see the doctor so that the doctor could take the spirit out of you. But, unfortunately, I didn’t know how to do that!
DMacA: It was very isolated. It was difficult medicine when its seven hours by boat to the hospital…
CL: If you had a very important emergency you could call the helicopter which would takes one hour, if it was available which wasn’t very often, and at night you could not fly. It was not so easy.
DMacA: We’ve talked about Reunion, we’ve talked about the Caribbean, and we’ve talked about South America, and these are all tropical, warm countries. But then you headed south. Tell us about your trip to the Antarctic.
CL: Antarctica’ is unbelievable. It was just one year ago. I needed to take eight airplanes to get to Antarctica during the summer. I was the doctor on a very big expedition and there were ten people of us in all, on tractors on the ice. We had to take sufficient fuel and food to take us to the scientific station of Concordia. That’s was 2000km over 23 days.
It was quite an experience, very foolish! It was ice cold at -40 degrees. Every part of your skin needed to be protected because it’s painful. And there were a lot of storms. At times it was a complete white out yet we needed to drive the tractor. The doctor was also a tractor driver!
DMacA: Tell us about the medical problems that you met along the way.
CL: In Antarctica I was sick. I had nosebleeds every day ten days. And I was very afraid because I was on my own with no other doctor or specialist to take care about me. If it got worse, I was really on my own. And together with this, I had one man with chest pain, another with gastroenteritis, and many people had finger injuries due to the mechanics.
DMacA: After that expedition, you returned by ship which was also interesting.
CL: To come back from Antarctica we took a special ship, an icebreaker, and it took six days until we arrived south of Australia, in Tasmania. The sea was very dangerous. The boat rolled from side to side and there were very dangerous waves. We also had to stop at a small Australian island to take care of one man who had an MI and take him back to Australia. And, because of the storms, we had three injuries to people. One is quite funny. One of the crew wanted to do yoga on the boat, which is a bad idea during a storm. He banged his head and needed stitches. Not fun for him but amusing for us.
DMacA: One of the islands that you visited was Kerguelen, which must be the most isolated island on earth. Tell us about that.
CL: Twenty people live on Kerguelen in winter and about 100 people in the summer. They are scientists and they stay there for a maximum of one year. To go there you need to take the boat which takes five days. You cannot go by plane. So, if you have an emergency, it’s five days at sea. There are two doctors and they stay there for one year and they can do any emergency surgery that is needed. I enjoyed meeting these doctors practising at the far end of the world. There are fishing boats around Kerguelen and I had to take care of one fisherman, who had a compartment problem, and we took him back to South Africa by boat.
DMacA: You’ve travelled the world, and now you’re back in Reunion, what is the next exciting adventure you’re planning.
CL: Just last week I ran “La-Diagonale-Des-Fous” , its an ultra trail running race. (162k https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Raid ) It’s not medicine but it was a very interesting adventure. So for now, I just need to rest, and plan the next one.
DMacA: It’s wasn’t all work on these various travels because you did lots of other things.Tell us about your diving.
CL: Yes, I like diving. I’m not very good, but I enjoy being under the sea, just trying to be happy and to discover the wonders of the world. And, yes, it’s very interesting. it’s different from medicine because it’s very quiet and slow but it’s nice after all the rush of adrenaline to go down and just rest under the sea.
DMacA: And at the other extreme, you climb these volcanoes.
CL: Yes, and I’ve made a little movie where I play my flute on the side of the volcano with the sound of the volcano erupting like percussion.
DMacA: So for a doctor who is intrigued by your career and who wanted to follow that career, what is your advice?
CL: First, is to dream. Because, when I was a teenager, I dreamt lots. But I needed to wait and it was not comfortable waiting. But it’s important to dream. Then, I got lots of ideas from meeting different people,speaking with them and with other doctors. They give you lots of ideas. So, the key piece of advice is to meet interesting people and to talk to them.
DMacA: Thank you very much for describing your career to us today. It’s absolutely fascinating. And I’m sure everyone is really very jealous of what a wonderful medical career and what you can do in medicine, because people don’t often think like that. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Thank you very much.
