Hungarian professor from Verona

On one of the first days of the cruise I saw one of the ship’s officers in the buffet dining room at lunchtime. When I looked at his badge, it said “Ship’s surgeon – Professor such-and-such” . Strange, I thought. Not the surgeon bit. This is just a hangover from 18^th century naval terminology. In those days the only ships’ doctors were surgeons, that is to say, if there was anything wrong with any particular part of your body, they would cut it out or cut it off. Fortunately medicine, including ships’ medicine has progressed a bit since them. But seafarers are conservative types so they still call them surgeons.

No, the strange thing was the professor bit and his name. “Professor?….” I asked him quizzically. “Yes,” he replied, “I am the head of the Emergency Department at the University Hospital of Verona. Every year (during my vacation) I come to work for a month as a doctor on a ship.”

“But you are not Italian…” I continued to probe. “I am from Hungary. I came to Italy during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956”.

We shouldn’t need it but with 2 members of our group who are not exactly youngsters (88 and 95) we should be prepared for any problems. It’s comforting to know we have a Hungarian professor of Emergency Medicine on board.