I tried to remember when I first heard the phrase. It might have been during my surgery rotation in medical school, or it might have been while learning image-guided procedures during radiology residency. Or it might have been another time entirely. The wisdom of this phrase lies not in its literal meaning, which is like most medical sayings- one part reassurance and two parts dark humor. For those who have never heard the phrase, it has two meanings. The surface meaning is this; be calm, because you will follow your training, and stop the patient’s bleeding, saving the day. The “humorous” second meaning is that the patient will run out of blood, his heart will stop beating, and the bleeding will stop that way. Obviously, that is not an acceptable outcome for us.

If realism is as artificial as any genre, strive to create your own realism. If theatre is a handicraft in which you make one of a kind pieces, then you're in complete control of your fictive universe. What are its physical laws? What's gravity like? What does time do? What are the rules of cause and effect? How do your characters behave in this altered universe?I was standing at the head of the bed with the patient in the lateral decubitus position, that is, he was lying on his side. While I injected lidocaine with a small needle into the patient’s scalp, I could hear him wincing and breathing through his teeth with each little poke and infusion. For BBC Radio 4, coverage will begin with Dr Kevin Fong and Isabel Hardman in a special episode of Start the Week alongside GP Phil Whitaker and the historian Andrew Seaton. Also that week, a one-off documentary The NHS at 75: Covid Memories will reflect on the pandemic through the experience of health service staff. I’ve just got a bleeder in here somewhere that I need to stop. These things happen sometimes. No need to worry.” This couldn’t be real. At any point I would wake up from the most realistic nightmare I’d ever had, spend the waking hour with relief that the horrors I had witnessed were nonexistent in waking life.

A play must be organized. This is another word for structure. You organize a meal, your closet, your time -- why not your play? I myself had been the recipient of such calls. Family doctors had called me in a panic, getting in too deep with their own procedures, and I had nonchalantly arrived to solve their problems.Presented by comedian, actor, musician and author Bill Bailey, Extraordinary Portraits will pay tribute to NHS heroes, marking the 75th Anniversary of the NHS with a series of specially commissioned and inspiring portraits. This six-part series explores the art of portrait making, as Bill - a keen art lover - pairs up some of the most inspiring NHS staff with leading British artists. We discover the stories of compassionate doctors, inspiring nurses, dedicated porters, passionate paramedics and cleaners who go above and beyond to help the people they care for. Their work, lives and personalities are captured for posterity in a new collection of compelling portraits. CBBC Action doesn't have to be overt. It can be the steady deepening of the dramatic situation or your character's steady emotional movements from one emotional/psychological condition to another: ignorance to enlightenment, weakness to strength, illness to wholeness. I abandoned any pretense of saving the patient. He was clearly still alive if not conscious. What else but his beating heart would be causing the blood to continue to pump? I only wanted to leave and call in reinforcements, maybe an exorcist or shaman.

An ER doctor I followed around on my emergency medicine rotation would walk past the room of a screaming child or patient and often remark, “Welp, A and B are working.” There's no time limit to writing plays. Think of playwriting as a life-long apprenticeship. Imagine you may have your best ideas on your deathbed. Squares of used gauze began to pile up on the mayo stand, damp and red. I had had enough. I continued to hold pressure on the scalp, adding more gauze whenever the current gauze got soaked. Soon, he had six inches of dressing jutting from his head, me applying pressure. I tossed this aside and threw some figure eight ties down with suture, blindly attempting to tie off the bleeding vessel. Florence Nightingale was an activist, a social reformer, a statistician, and a bold nurse who defied stifling British conventions to change history. An indisputable pioneer, Nightingale died in 1910 aged of 90, leaving behind an inspirational legacy that benefits everyone’s medical care today.Invest something truly personal in each of your characters, even if it's something of your worst self. Don't be afraid to attempt great themes: death, war, sexuality, identity, fate, God, existence, politics, love. Write because you want to show something. To show that the world is shit. To show how fleeting love and happiness are. To show the inner workings of your ego. To show that democracy is in danger. To show how interconnected we are. (Each "to show" is active and must be personal, deeply held, true to you.) Which leads me to another of my favorite old medical phrases: Tincture of Time. A tincture, for those of you who are not pharmacists in the 1910’s, is a concentrated liquid herbal extract, made from soaking plants with assumed medical properties in alcohol. So, Tincture of Time is the “medicine” of just waiting for a patient to heal themselves. Sometimes, that’s the best thing to do. Or the only thing to do. If you’ve already tried all the actual medicines. Ideas may be deeply embedded in the interactions and reactions of your character; they may be in the music and poetry of your form. You have thoughts and you generate ideas constantly. A play ought to embody those thoughts and those thoughts can serve as a unifying energy in your play.

A lifetime ago in school, in residency, we were hammered home the principles of the ABCs when it came to an emergency situation. You had to make sure the airway was clear. That was A. Vary your tone as much as possible. Juxtapose high seriousness with raunchy language with lyrical beauty with violence with dark comedy with awe with eroticism. Tactical Combat Casualty Care Guidelines[ http://www.health.mil/Libraries/Presentations_Course_Materials/TCCC_guidelines_090204.pdf]In all your plays be sure to write at least one impossible thing. And don't let your director talk you out of it. Write from your organs. Write from your eyes, your heart, your liver, your ass -- write from your brain last of all. This thought only appeared for the briefest instant and I was able to keep my steely resolve, to focus on the task at hand, mostly thanks to my years of experience, but also in part due to that old mantra. Born in 1820 into a rich English family, Florence Nightingale was passionate about medicine from an early age. In a world where it was normal for women of society to remain at home, she broke through gender barriers and pioneered a profession in a field previously reserved for men.