Description
Fie! See! Oh The Rap! Why? by Mary Ann is a memoir spanning more than 50 years of the author’s life and career as a physiotherapist in Africa, offering a personal account of medicine, marriage, family and social change in South Africa.
The author worked in more than ten hospitals, including Groote Schuur Hospital during the era of the first heart transplant, and describes her experiences treating patients in areas ranging from intensive care and neurology to post-operative recovery, prenatal care, wound treatment and chest conditions. She also reflects critically on the increasing reliance on medication in modern medicine and the role that physiotherapy once played in treating a wide range of conditions.
Alongside her professional career, the memoir explores her marriage, family life and parenting, including an unusual love story and her experience of building a close family partnership. Born in the Far East, she also recounts encountering and challenging the racial and social restrictions of apartheid-era South Africa.
The book offers an unusual combination of personal memoir, medical history and South African social history, viewed through the experiences of a woman who spent almost five decades in the physiotherapy profession.
