olaoluwatomi

Today i rested, its no wonder the Lord made the Israelites observe the sabbath and keep it holy. Rest does wonders to a body, you can actually smile at people and greet them, you can deal with difficult patients and not become a difficult doctor too. You view the world through a brand new pair of eyes that have had the opportunity to close for more than just a few hours, You actually begin to think you can take on the world, till the cycle of work starts again and you lose all the energy you regained. I have actually spent today resting and i feel brand new. I recommend it for anyone feeling a bit low now, tired and stressed out from the toil of work, take some time off if you can and rest. There are no known side effects. Caution it does not have a NAFDAC number:)

Ever had a difficult patient, i bet all doctors have hads their fair share of them, right now im still stewing from my encounter (not directly) with one very difficult patient a few minutes ago. Of course he is male (sorry guys) but i tend to have men as more difficult to handle than the women folk. A few days ago it was another man! But the funny thing is that at the end of their stay in hospital we are usually good friends or at least we entertain some semblance of friendship. My perceived percentage of difficult patients in my small experience as a doc, well lets say 1 in 50 patients are difficult. I just remebered another difficult one just now hmmmm lets increase the ratio to about 1 in 20. What makes them stand out, well ill try and give a list. 1. The difficult patient has his preconceived notion of how his treatment must be and despite your pathological description of his disease process he clings stubbornly to his own idea of the probable cause. i.e About two weeks ago an eld...

In the past 48 hours ive met two young nigerians who want to study medicine. The first is the daughter of one of my patients sisters who apparently is the only one of her generation interested in pursuing a further education. She is from a low income family and her mother at first wanted to discourage her in view of the financial burden her dreams of being a doctor may cause. She apparently wanted to read pharmacy but was told by ?who that the only way to make money as a pharmacist was to open your own pharmacy shop! and that being a doctor was more lucrative. I wonder whoever told her that? I tried to albeit unsuccesfully dissuade her from her pursuit especially since i could see that money was the motivation. I might as well have been talking to a cat to stop licking its fur. Before i chose the 'glorious' field of medicine, i thought it was the only course worth studying. I had from an early age, (my earliest recollections of my decision to read medicine was when i was asked ...

Hi people still have nothing much to write talk about wtiters block, i actually have several topics that run through my mind while im at work but somehow when i sit in front of the system i run out of ideas, i need help dont you think. Today was better than yesterday was on call the day before and got a maximum of an hour and a half worth of sleep of course you can imagine i was working in auto pilot during thr day i made that up by sleeping from about 5pm to 2am this morning, i slept through a heavy downpour and woke up wondering why the weather had cooled considerably in the morning. That was how the last two days went, bear with me i'll be out of the block soon, maybe the next post will be about the low and high points in medicine i have gone through. When i first started as a house man certifying patients dead was a bit difficult and later i could certify and go straight to eat. I had to steel myself against breaking down or dreaming about the deae i suppose, but right now ...

Trying to make it a habit to record in my blog daily seeing i have been out of sync for a long while before i got back on track recently. What im trying to say is that i really do not have much to write today. I hope i can give you something more appetising than my dry dialogue tomorrow or wait let me leave you something to think on or reply to whichever you wish. A friend of mine sent me this tevt this evening, here it goes: As a doctor you can sacrifice money for expertise or expertise for money. I wish there was a centre where both could be balanced! What do you think? I'd love to hear from you.

I walked into the emergency room with my consultant this afternoon, he had seen me earlier on and asked if i had a strong stomach (he is a visiting consultant), well it so happened that a young lady had arrived at our facility over night and he wanted me to see her, so he was preparing me for the sight i was to behold. What was wrong with her? She had paid a visit to a local abortionist about a week before and successfully terminated her pregnancy, but had also unfortunately been infected. I'll explain... Infections can range from simple ones which can be cleared by a simple course of antibiotic therapy to the complex which unfortunately she got. What infection? Necrotizing Fascitis! For the medically uninitiated its a gangrene- i hope ive managed to simplify things. Her left lower limb is horribly swollen, with blisters all over, she has crepitus that extends up to mid abdomen. She is extremely ill looking, pale, in short she looks like death. Her chance for survival is very slim...

Anyone who was in the ivory towers in the last decade would be familiar with the title of my blog. It was a rallying cry by the Academic Staff Unionof Universities (ASUU) which decried their poor pay as watchmen and nurturers of the younger generation. Their take home pay was not able to pay the bills for a month talk less of making ends meet before the arrival of another pay check! I wonder if doctors in Nigeria should also adopt that slogan, especially with the recent furore over non-payment of call duty allowances and a slash in salaries of doctors in Government establishments. I'll use my class as an example of the typical Nigerian doctor until i run into examples where we would not be an ideal prototype of the problems mentioned. We came into the University full of dreams about our future, we wanted to read Medicine, we were the cynosure of all eyes especially of those other students who wanted to read Medicine but could not gain admission. Our odyssey had actually started muc...