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....