The small Doctor!

I have always been small. In primary school from the first to the sixth grade i was one of the shortest in class and as a consequence had the privilege of sitting right in front of the blackboard! Of course i could not get away with any pranks i may have wanted to play. I am now the biggest i have been in my small life and my size is still not enough to ward off the shocked and sometimes admiring looks i get when people know im a doctor.



During my youth service year i used to feel uneasy working round the hospital in my ward coat with my stethoscope round my neck because the comments of "Ah small likita" "is that small girl a doctor?" where sure to trail my steps as i walked from my room to the clinic. I don't think i ever got used to it and i made sure i either hurried through the corridors or walked leisurely pretending not to hear the oft repeated remarks and avoiding eye contact with the people making the remarks or else i would be pulled aside to answer questions ranging from how old am i to when did i start/finish school...etc


Being small is just one disadvantage, being small and female puts you at a double disadvantage. I have had patients walk into a clinic where i was with a fellow male colleague and sit in a chair in front of me but face the male doctor and totally ignore me as if i was just another piece of furniture. After a few seconds of my trying to get their attention they would turn to me in embarrasment and apologise for their oversight. A few would walk into the room and balk at seeing me and would then go on to request to see another doctor, even if the doctor was junior to me as long as he was male it satisfied their inner longing to be seen by a 'real' doctor and not a little girl trying to impersonate one.

I remember once walking into a ward to examine a patient a few days after surgery after having done the necessary things and telling the patient he could commence a normal diet the male relation of the patient thanked me politely but said they would wait until the doctor came to give them instructions. I refused to say anything at that point but the nurses quickly replied that i was the doctor and no other doctor would appear in the next 48hours seeing it was a weekend. The man was more bashful, and he quickly apologised for his mistake. I prefer that to those who come in and hop into the next consulting room to check out if what that 'juvenile' doc said was true. I have caught a few patients like that but i just smile and walk out the door as if i did not know what they were doing.

I know this phenomenom is not my exclusive preserve as i have been witness to others been treated the same way. Just before i started house job, i used to go to the Railway Hospital in Lagos for some introduction to the world of practising medicine. I was in a consulting room with a female senior ccolleague who is a bit bigger than me, when an elderly woman walked in to see her. Her first comment was "you doctors these days are so small, can i see the consultant?" We assured her that she would see the consultant only after we had seen her. She agreed but you could see that she was a bit suspicious of the whole affair. when my colleague was through with her, she went off to fetch the consultant.

Now our consultant was female, small and very trendy, she looked like she had just stepped out of medical school. Of course the woman asked in suprise "are you the consultant?'"she then launched into stories of her days when doctors and Consultants where Old men with the learned looks of Plato and Aristotle, with their glasses perched pince-nez fashion on the end of their noses and how none of us resembled them! Im sure the woman wished she could be transported back to that era.


The other day i was in the clinic at my new job and a father walked in with his daughter who had some complaint. After the examination i was writing down my findings when the father startled me by shouting at his daughter. "Do you think this young lady became a doctor by playing all day insted of reading?"His voice bellowed. It took me a few seconds to realise that he was chastening his daughter who to him spent more time playing than studying. He spent a few more minutes telling her to buckle up so she could be like me! I smiled, in my heart of hearts i was secretly pleased at being a model to the younger one, and i wondered if the same would count if i wasn't so small!

I'd rather be a small doc than a giant one!