As long as I can remember, I always saw myself as intelligent (well, who doesn’t – I mean, see themselves as intelligent), not brilliant though, intelligent. And as such I felt like I had no limits when it came to my career choice. With time I started narrowing them down to the things I was passionate about, and believe me when I say medicine was never in the forefront. The most interesting ones then were, engineering, computer science, piloting, writing, law, in that order. This was further narrowed down when I joined the science class in senior secondary. The decision to become a science student was quite straightforward. Then, science was said to be for the intelligent ones, (though I’ve since realized that to be a faulty orientation), and since I thought myself to be intelligent, ergo, I had to be in science class. How naïve I was.
Medicine was not high in my consideration list because I felt it requires brilliance more than intelligence (and that, I have found out to be true. It has a lot to with cramming, hard grueling work and little space for reasoning as the lecturers can be very rigid.) The final nail in the coffin was when I realized that If I were to do it, I won’t be writing mathematics in JAMB, which is my best subject of all time. But ironically, the suggestion, consideration and resolution of my medical career was carried out in less than a minute, without even my participation… lol.


{side note: I believe there is a big difference between intelligence and brilliance, intelligence more like has to do with being smart, good spatial and abstract reasoning capabilities, you know, this kind are usually problem solvers and deal better with the rigors of life, they do well in reasoning games like chess, scrabble etc while brilliance is mostly academic, usually possess good memory and are hard working. The intelligent peeps pass exams not by having actual knowledge per se but by being able to reason out the answers, lol. And of course, one can be both.
For those still in the school system, I would advise you to cultivate brilliance (if you can), but then try hard to improve your intelligence, this will serve you much better in life. Some of the ways you can improve your intelligence include, solving puzzles including mathematics, playing brain games like chess, draughts, scrabble, monopoly, reading books, biographies, novels, watching highly rated Hollywood movies, please stay away from nollywood movies, my I.Q usually drops by 5points after each nollywood movie I watch – no offence to nollywood producers, they’re trying but they are not yet there}

PART 1

INTRODUCTION

I’m the second child and first son of two children. It was just I and my elder sister. So, yeah, growing up was lonely and boring as hell.
My family is a deeply religious one. Father is a pastor, mother is a pastor’s wife (though not full time, both are also working), and sister is an upcoming pastor’s wife lol… guess I’m the only one not in the pastoring business……….yet.
We were trained up in a very strict, rigid fashion, almost military style. Father is a strict disciplinarian, mother is a worrier (wow, there’s a word for that), so bad combination for the children. She worries about every little thing; where you are, where you are going, what you’re doing, when you cough, when you belch, in fact to summarize it, she recently suggested I see a doctor (mind the pun lol) cos my urine looked too ‘concentrated’, wtf! Like what the hell was she doing in my toilet checking out my urine to start with??! Anyways you can understand why this can be bad for any kid, you just can’t keep any secrets, she goes through every stuff, and if anything unholy turns up, straight it goes to my father and you’re promptly disciplined! Like I said, bad combination.
Whether this was constructive or destructive, I’m yet to fully ascertain, but the fact is, it made us very serious academically, have always been among the top five at least, in every class I’ve been in.
Growing up, I can remember wanting to be so many things in the future, factors influencing this ranging from level of respect it accrues from the society, to level of difficulty (I’ve always loved challenges) to income. I can remember one time when I was young, after my sister told me about how so much Night soil men (that is people that empty feaces from pit toilets then - don’t know if they still exist) made, I made up my mind, regrettably loudly, that I would be one when I grow up – of course she hasn’t stopped calling me ‘onye oburunshi’.

Sorry for the long delay guys, started having double minds about putting lots of my personal details out in the public, but then I had a rethink, I now think I can relate most of my medical school experience without divulging much personal details and besides it might help some people out there, who knows. so, we continue...

will be writing about my days in medical school. this is my first attempt at public writing, so be patient with me. corrections and criticisms both constructive and destructive are welcome
its a true life story, so may not be very interesting, but bear with me, i'll try as much as truthfully possible to spice it up.

as you read and comment may you be blessed

******PROLOGUE********

It was a Thursday evening, exactly 6 months ago, I remember clearly, because it was remarkable, remarkably bad. I had reached the nadir and it couldn’t possibly get worse (well I can’t be so sure because some few days ago I was also certain that the events of the days couldn’t get worse, and here I am). The thought of this new thought made me even more depressed.
I was sitting at the almost empty hospital pharmacy, on a long hard metal bench, but that was the least of my problems. My back was to the window, I couldn’t bear the sight of the sky, I couldn’t bear to hope, because every single time I tried, it was crushed heavily with an even greater problem. I had given up.
My head was bent forwards, as I looked down (as was in my manner this past days), I stared angrily at my dusty worn out shoes, that has served me for the past four years, I knew it wasn’t its fault but I didn’t care, I was angry with everyone, with everything. Momentarily I would glance at my bag on the floor, than gaze upwards gradually observing my ‘it was white’ ward coat, and then upwards to the dirty ceiling, and to the static ceiling fan, support my head with my hand, sigh quietly and shake my head, then look down again. The world was caving in, and my head was at its center.
I had failed my 4th mbbs exam, I was to re-sit pediatrics, this was the first time I’ve ever failed any major exam in my life, and it was majorly depressing, even more depressing was the fact I didn’t deserve to fail. If you’ve ever heard about clinical exams in medical school, and the idiosyncrasies of the examiners, you would understand what I’m saying. As I was gradually adapting to this news, and adjusting to life as an ‘average’ student, and consoling myself that it was a temporary setback, a huge bombshell was dropped. The school faculty of medicine has decided that there won’t be re-sits anymore, for any course you fail, you would repeat the whole year, joining the set below. That was the last straw. I’ve failed the first major exam in my life, and I was paying the ultimate price.
Seating besides me was the one woman I cared about, my mum, she was sick, she has been sick for some time and her drug bills were running into hundreds of thousands. On that day she didn’t come to the hospital with enough money for her drugs so she had called me to help her with the remaining amount. But that was the least of my problems. Because instead of giving her money, I was about to tell a sick woman that her ‘brilliant-soon-to-be-a-doctor’ son, wasn’t anymore, and that her title of ‘mama doctor’ is still a far way off.
As she droned on, about the tests, the drugs, the money, my eyes moistened as I thought of how best to drop the news.



(It’s in our darkest moments, at the lowest of depths, when we can’t fall no more…. we look up… and we see God)