Dr. Adeniran

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 reviewing my patients with me, I remember her diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in a patient who presented with progressive muscle weakness. Her delight when I showed her notes my dad had written in a patients chart over 25 years before. The patient had visited the hospital last and saw my dad at his last visit, and now he was seeing me. 

 Her admonition not to keep my cell phone tucked around my waist, her gentle remonstrations when I did something she did not like. She would get called out when our registrars ran into trouble during surgical cases and she never once showed any displeasure at having to come in so late. With her glasses and magnifying lenses at the tip of her nose, she would cut, suture, dissect with exact precision. It was a joy to work beside her in the theatre. Her thoroughness and dedication to her craft was impressive. 

 Dr. Adeniran was a gem, she took care of me when I was ill as an intern and helped make sure my schedule accommodated my leave of absence. 

My one regret is that apart from a short visit to Ogbomosho during my youth service, I had not been back to see her or visit BMC now BUTH Bowen. 

 Dr. Adeniran, Thank you for everything. Continue to rest in peace.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Death 5

Image
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 ...
Read more

Death III

Image
In recounting my near misses, I can't but think of how many other misses I am unaware of. As a child, I was the only one who was hospitalized a few times compared to my siblings and cousins. I cannot remember if I ever felt sick enough to be at deaths door, but I do know I disliked getting injections. During one of my trips to the hospital I was to receive a Novalgin injection, for those of you old enough to remember Novalgin, it was the most painful torturous injection ever. I screamed hell and blue murder as the nurse approached with a Novalgin shot. 'I don't take injections', I lamented in my most piteous voice, you would think anyone with a heart would see the tears and back down but those nurses were a special breed. After a few minutes of my temporary madness, my father was summoned, it took just one look from him and I accepted the drilling of the syringe through my marrow (that was what it felt like) without as much as a squeak. The feeling Novalgin gave your bu...
Read more

My Mother Tongue!

I grew up speaking English as my first language and I can tell you that is one fact I am not proud about. I remember once when we were much younger shouting out the only Yoruba words we knew as children 'olosi', 'oloriburuku' etc. My grandmother came out of the house hurriedly to put a stop to our foolishness, what on earth did we think we were doing? she asked, our reply still puts a smile on my face 'we are speaking Yoruba' we replied. My lack of proficiency in speaking Yoruba ( I can write it:) is revealed anytime I speak to my patients. When our conversation is not just me answering in monosyllables, I begin to speak rapidly in my mother tongue but by the end of my first two sentences, I hear myself stuttering and stammering and Im wondering if the patients don't think this doctor is having a sudden attack of catatonia! My Yoruba teacher in Secondary school summed up my Yoruba speaking prowess to my parents during an open day 'She is a good student b...
Read more