Locum Consultant – Anaesthetics

• Qualification: DA
• She excelled in the field of trauma anaesthesia and her clinical acumen in Shock Room was brilliant. She has outstanding skill but none of the paper qualifications of a consultant anaesthetist.
• She was quite a character – here are a few examples:
  • Dina was a free spirit and having become an integral part of the Accident Hospital Anaesthetic department, she saw no need to improve her qualifications believing that she deserved to be awarded Fellowship of the Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons ad eudendum. Sadly, the Faculty of Anaesthetists did not agree. PSL wrote ‘of all these and women encouraged by Gissane, undoubted the most remarkable, out-spoken, unpredictable, devoted and beloved was Dr D B Langrana’.
  • A patient who was admitted without apparent severe injuries or blood loss but who failed to pass a drop of urine. Dina instantly diagnosed a ruptured bladder but the surgeon in charge failed to agree with her. As a trainee, I asked her what we could do. She said ‘watch’. She gave the patient a large dose of diuretic and invited me to stand back and observe subsequent events. The patient’s abdomen rapidly became distended with urine and the surgeons thought he was bleeding into his abdomen so did a peritoneal tap. As Dina expected and to the surgeons’ embarrassment, the tap revealed huge quantities of urine.
  • Customarily, she summoned us to eat wonderful curries that she prepared for us at around midnight.
  • She also hosted an annual lunch, in which she made a wealth curries for all of the nurses, anaesthetists and surgeons
• In 1981 she went to Switzerland (because she did not trust UK surgeons) to have bilateral cataract surgery. Sadly, she was temporarily blinded by bilateral intra-vitreous haemorrhages and resigned immediately.