After completing my finals at medical school I had to take an overseas 3 month placement in a country of my own choice prior to graduating. I chose to work with MSF in Ethiopia which was, at the time, a mess and in desperate need of aid and support in all areas. I worked in a clinic attached to a refugee camp and feeding station. It was grim. I was treating infections, malnutrition related problems, the usual injuries and cases of diarrhoea all the time. Death was fairly common but we were saving dozens of lives a day on the positive side. All good. Then one day an emaciated 3 or 4 year old girl was brought in in a bad way, semi conscious and wrapped in a dirty rag that was heavily blood stained around her buttocks and between her legs. My translator spoke with the mother and it was getting ugly. I had the g****** the table and stripped just as she turned to me and said ‘FGM’. I had seen adult women survivors of this but not a newly cut infant. The wounds were a mess and though trained not to be emotional I was angry that a defenceless infant that probably weighed what a 12 month old weighs in the UK had been subjected to this and her life put in imminent danger. I had a nurse apply a pressure pad while I got a drip running to get some fluid into her veins as the risk of death from shock (blood loss) was grave. That done I got to cleaning and disinfecting the wound and then stiched the open gash where her c******* . . was