PREVENTIVE MEDICINE: Some Doctors Get Their Appendix Removed Before Going to Antarctica. Here’s Why.

For most expeditioners on Antarctica, the doctor is available to help in the event of appendicitis, as in the thrilling case of Heard Island station cook Jack Starr, operated on by doctor Otto Rec in October 1951, during the spring. But if the doctor themself is so stricken, things suddenly become a lot more complicated.

“What are the odds?” you are no doubt wondering. High enough that it has happened twice.

I don’t want appendicitis, and I’m not even in Antarctica.