olaoluwatomi

Over the past few years, I have observed with much more attention, the passage of generations. I listened to the retirement speech of an old teacher of mine in medical school. She spoke about wondering why a classmate of hers in high school was bereft because her father had died in his 50s. Her own parents were in their 30s and according to her, she thought 50 was ancient. She tactlessly commented about her friends grief wondering why she was so distraught. She made us all laugh when she mentioned that now at the age of 70, she does not count herself as one of the ancients. My job brings me face to face with death on a daily basis and this has spurred me to put my house in order. I have had documents prepared for the disposal of my earthly benefits and I have appointed financial and health power of attorneys. I mention, like I mentioned in my last post to prevent the DMs that never fail to follow these posts, that I am not actively dying but I think preparing for death is as important ...

When I wrote the first three parts on death, I focused on my near-death experiences. I briefly wondered at my reaction to these happenings and the ‘lack of fear’ when these happened. I quickly realized that as my experiences where a few seconds long, the fear that accompanied those experiences generally dissipated with the joy that consumed me when I realized I was still in the land of the living. My first brush with real fear came when I worked in a refugee camp in South Sudan and people were dying in large numbers from a hepatitis E outbreak. It was where my nail-biting habit disappeared for good. Ok, it still appears in moments of extreme stress but the fear of consuming the virus broke my lifelong habit of finding solace chewing on the little stumps that I called fingers. After watching many people succumb to death and facing a mob go berserk when they thought their sister, daughter and child was going to die, I quickly realized that dying of hepatitis E was not an option and there...

  Many events over the last few years, have me wondering why I chose medicine. It is a tough job but one that I embraced with all of my heart as a new doctor. I started this blog to try and document my love for the job and I tell you, I loved pouring out my heart on the pages of the world wide web. But (I know, one does not start a sentence with a but) the last few years have been brutal. I was speaking with a colleague and friend last week about not finding joy in my job as a physician and he was in shock. He asked what I felt when a patient with a poor prognosis does well and I had to truthfully respond that I felt nothing. I only feel the loss keenly when my patient dies, but when they do well, I do not have any euphoric feelings, or feelings of accomplishment that my coming to work that day had anything to do with it. I have been missing from this blog for a few years and even when I came back 3 years ago, I did not have the strength or joy to fill its pages and I know why....

 In speaking of the events of the last two years, one major emotion that runs through me is one of anger. It has taken me many months to recognize it and even then I told myself that I was no longer angry but just upset at the turn things had taken. If you are guessing that the pandemic has something to do with my emotion, you won't be wrong but it is also something else. I had the opportunity to be a part of a new community and spent many hours during the pandemic with them. The first thing I recognized was not the warm welcoming smiles for the truth be told these were few and far in between but the one prevalent theme and one wall I walked into was the hostility and the disdain if you may of people in this community and it stunned me. It not only stunned me, but it took me to a new low. I have started at least 5 variations of this post in the past 2 years. Once or twice before the pandemic an then at least 2 times during it. I am still nowhere close to knowing anymore than I did ...

 I posted the link to my culture shock II article on various forums I belong to and I got a number of responses I would like to share here. It was interesting to note that my experience was not unique to me and even certain geographic differences existed with respect to greeting. I think one sentiment that is unique to all the comments I received was that the 'no greeting' part of the culture rankled the most. As a friend put it-  ''This is where the French differ. For them, greeting is a way of acknowledging the humanity of the next person. You cannot not acknowledge a person; it is a faux pas.'' Another friend said- "You talk and laugh with a colleague one day...the next day, you wave at them from across the walkway....and they look right past you... GEEZ!!!!.  How does one live a life without "greeting" or at least a form of acknowledgement.... I'm still not used to it....😒" Other comments: "These are things I have experienced. T...

 I first wrote about culture shock here  twelve years ago when I came as a student to the US for the very first time. And even after all this time, there are still things that shock me, even when I think I have assimilated into a culture very different from the one I was brought up in. I'll go back twelve years and then fast forward to present times. I arrived in Boston at the end of summer and thankfully got accommodation not too far from school which meant I could walk to school and did not have to commute. It also meant that I passed by people on the street every day and as a typical 'yoruba' gal greeted them with a cheery good morning. The first few times when my greeting was not acknowledged, I thought I had not greeted loud enough for me to be heard, so I changed the cadence of my voice which resulted in the exact same response- silence. It took me a while before I stopped instinctively greeting every being I passed on my way to school, but a few months later I had ad...