It's been 6 years since my last appearance here and a lot of water has passed under the bridge, more like a billion cubits. I have grown up, I was grown before but trust me I have grown a lot more. I have completed a residency, chief residency and fellowship and actually moved from NY to a more idyllic less fast paced town in the Midwest in this time. The move has come with all of the culture shock that entails moving away from the North East and I have plenty to write about this. I transitioned from trains and buses to actually driving myself everywhere and recently completed a solo 7 hour drive with 3 brief stops to refuel and use the restroom. It seemed like a good idea then but several rarely used muscles showed up multiple days in a row to protest against being so abused that in concession to these muscles, any distance greater than 4 hours by road will automatically be upgraded to a flight. My regular driving distance on days when I want to escape the quiet of my town ...
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...
Dr. Adeniran! If you have spoken to me for any great length, you will know that my favorite place ever to work was at the Baptist Medical Center in Ogbomosho. Popularly called Bami by the locals and BMC Ogbomosho. I have many fond memories of my time at Ogbomosho and the reason I do, is because of Dr. Mrs. Adeniran. She was a seasoned clinician and she imparted her knowledge to us, the interns, registrars and senior registrars under her charge with great grace, joy and intention. She was a clinician I looked up to, and it was easy to see why. I have so many memories of working beside her in the medicine clinic at BMC Ogbomosho. One of my favorite memories, is when she told a patient that he better tell me in greater detail how long he had been ill as I did not understand Yoruba. The patient kept saying ojo meta when I asked him how long he had had his symptoms. I the 'kobokobo' doctor kept thinking he truly meant 3 days (ojo meta). Her patience revie...
Comments
Post a Comment