When I was a medical student in Okhaldhunga, a rural district in Nepal, a pregnant woman was brought to our hospital by her family after her labour became obstructed at home. They lived far away, and it took them three days on foot to reach us. By then, her baby had died and the mom was in shock. I’d never seen anything like it. The obstruction itself was relatively simple to resolve: I moved the baby’s shoulder and completed the delivery. But the mother was badly infected, and despite giving her fluids, oxygen, antibiotics, steroids, epinephrine and everything we could, we couldn’t save her either. It was one of the most dramatic cases I encountered as a medical student, and the image of it has stayed with me ever since.