It never occurred to me what agreement I had signed on the day of my induction, the hippocratic oath.
We were all eager to do this as we all stood and solemnly affirmed.
They had told us how busy a doctor always is but nobody was moved by the reality.
To most of us, it was more than just being a respected profession but it’s like the only profession in the world.
The day you become a doctor, the world will know even people you least expected.
They look up to you for so many things. Most of them quickly call you when they notice a new symptom in their bodies.
Some assume that you are now one of the richest in the world.
The life of a doctor surely has a beginning. Someone like me has always had the interest of studying Medicine. A lot of people had tried to discourage me with their words and lack of interest but the passion stayed and was just second to none. I’ve only seen myself in that white coat and not as an Engineer, Economist or an Accountant.
I was just determined from the outset. I consulted my senior colleagues and asked them questions anytime they came around. I asked questions about their experiences in medical school, the exams that one has to pass and the cost of being in medical school. All these I digested each time and reflected upon.
Of course, you can’t imagine perfectly the way everything looks. It was best to be part of the experience. This made me enrol for the UME but I didn’t fill in Medicine as my first choice, not even as a second choice.
How then will I get to study this course I had been dreaming about since I was a kid. I got a good advice from my brother. He was an Engineering student but had friends in the College of Medicine. He told me to choose a course in the College of Medicine different from Medicine. He affirmed this because of the uncertainty we do have each year in the UME results and the certainty about my performance in the first year in the University. By uncertainty, I mean that you can never really predict your score in the UME.
However, he was so convinced I would do well in my 100 level which will automatically translate to my changing over to Medicine in the second year after finishing with a minimum of 6.0 CGPA. This plan eventually worked for me.
I got into medical school but it was a different event totally. It was not only academically challenging but also physically challenging as I had to walk a great distance every day with my bad leg but I pressed on as I always looked at the happy ending and reward later on in life. This is not to say that I was never frustrated and depressed at some points. The work was really overwhelming.
Passing through medical school cannot be likened to any other. I stand to be corrected but as of now, I’m yet to see a similar course.
If I’m to spell out the courses we did in details, I’m sure they won’t contain this article. Just for emphasis sake, Pathology alone as a case study is made up of histo-pathology, medical microbiology, haematology, chemical pathology and forensic pathology with massive text books which have to be covered before the MBBS exam to ensure good success.
Nobody having made a grave mistake in a clinical exam is allowed to pass until the right thing is done. You will be allowed to spend an extra three months or a year as the case may be in order to learn it the proper way until you can be trusted with a patient’s life. You can’t bribe your way through because you have different examiners that will assess you at different levels before you pass.
While I was in the medical school, we were told about the number of years we will spend both in the pre-clinical and clinical schools which makes a total of six years. Whether there is a strike or not, we will pause our academic activities and resume from where we stopped. Sometimes, we may have to start all over again from the department where we were currently before the onset of the strike.
We had about twenty postings in clinical school alone which spanned a total of three and the half years which is different from the earlier three years that we spent in the pre-clinical school.
Unlike most other courses, they may skip some weeks they lost during the strike and decide to write the semester exam so that they can meet up with the calendar.
This can never happen in the medical school. No part of the curriculum can be skipped. You can’t leave out Anaesthesia and Ophthalmology postings just because you were on ASUU strike. You will have to do them as soon as you resume from the strike.
The nature of exposure we get as doctors, no other profession in the medical field can say they have that level of exposure. We withdraw blood samples, sometimes soaked in patients’ blood, attend to unstable cases aggressively where we can get ourselves pricked with infected blood yet we are paid just 5 thousand Naira as hazard allowance.
While we do a 24-hour call from 8 am sunday to 8 am monday for instance, we still resume 8 am that same Monday for that day’s work till 4 pm before you can rest making a total 32 hours at a stretch without complaining. Some doctors even work for a longer duration.
Other health workers do a shift-type of work. They go home to rest after their night shifts.
As a doctor, you can’t afford to sleep during call hours when you have a lot of work to do. You take quick decisions. The drug dosages must be adequate. The interventions must be timely.
You can’t afford to be absent or sleeping in the presence of your patient while at duty after these sleepless night. Nobody cares about your busy call hour in the night.
This whole scenario is a really frightening one and you ask yourself, is it because I want to earn a living?
With the nature of what we do, and the energy and time we expend, the salary is not commensurate.
As a doctor, you have to be careful each day you work and always be at alert in the management of your patients.
This is not the point one will turn back. It may be demanding but it has always been one’s desire to be in this profession. I am never regretting my decisions. I have only come to understand the extent of my desire and the purpose of my calling.
With the gains and the challenges that come with the profession, one must endure and serve humanity.
