Why medicine?

 

Some hectic days at work, especially those filled with patients with mental health illnesses, challenging social situations and complex medical needs, can lead me to question why I do this as a career. I have already discussed other jobs I occasionally fantasize about doing on one of my older blogs ( The ultimate dream job…), but sometimes it’s about recollecting the multiple steps I took to get me where I am today.

So high school finished, and I guess I could say I had done okay. At that point, all I wanted to do was computer science as I felt computers were the future. I had just completed my IGCE examinations which included a project where I computerized my grandfather’s store inventory management and as I submitted my floppy disc for assessment, I thought that my career decision was well and truly settled. Given high school ended in early December and the results were published end of January the following year, I had a restless Christmas break fielding questions from family and friends regularly about what the next step was. To kill time and avoid the interrogation, I spent a lot of my time trying to distract myself from the questions by watching a whole lot of television.

I am a self-confessed television addict and I am happy to watch anything and everything on screen. That summer, I got myself addicted to a show called Forensic detectives on Discovery channel and with every passing day convinced myself that I should become one of the forensic pathologists. I persuaded my mother to organize an interview with a forensic pathologist locally so I could decide whether that was a career to pursue and the nice gentleman just burst my bubble. He could not understand why I would be interested in the field and basically said it was not as exciting as it was made out to be on the show I had been watching. “You are just a glorified police officer” were his exact words as I left his office dismayed.

As university approached, I figured I might as well apply to study medicine and see how I would go during my “pre-medical term”. Unfortunately, the pre-med term was basically all the sciences and mathematics and didn’t provide much in terms of taste of medicine. After 12 months of the course, however, all that changed as we were placed on a 2-week job experience placement at our local hospital where I fell in love with medicine in general. A friend and I decided to extend our placement by a whole month and by the end of it we were being treated as junior doctors. We were suturing stab wounds, managing fractures and assisting in theatre which was all amazing.

I left that placement inspired to do medicine and with that in mind worked hard through medical school and fellowship training to get to where I am today as a family physician. Choosing a speciality in medicine also threatened to cause some stress but as I wanted to be a general doctor who could still do obstetrics and eventually palliative medicine etc on the side, being a family physician was a no-brainer. So, when I hear another sad story about people, their social situations or whatever it might be they attend me to help with, I find myself very privileged to help in whatever tiny way.  I hope to continue practising in this field that continues to ignite my passion regularly. I must admit that “leaving patients at work” is something I will forever grapple with but with time, and hectic days included, I can say I really do love my career.

Dedicated to my UB partner in crime Morapedi 

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I saved a life!!!

I know that I have probably assisted in saving a few lives in my career as a family physician. However, there is nothing like having someone’s life literally in your hands and this was one of those days I still reflect on and thankful for what I do as a profession.

I was about 7 months pregnant and working the evening shift in a metropolitan medical center as a General Practitioner. I had just finished having my afternoon break and was on my way back to see my evening patients when one of the receptionists asked me for some assistance. She had been notified by a passerby that someone had fallen outside the clinic and she was pushing the wheelchair to go and see what was going on. As we strolled over to where there was now a few people standing in the middle of the road, I could hear someone saying “Sir, keep your eyes open and stay with me”. I immediately thought “F*ck, Fu*k” and quickly waddled my pregnant self to the scene where an elderly gentleman was lying lifeless in the middle of the road bleeding from his forehead.

I immediately went into doctor mode, instructed a passerby to call the ambulance, got the receptionist to call more staff to help, did a basic assessment and started doing chest compressions (CPR). I should add, it was nothing like the one illustrated on the above cartoon image, in case you were wondering. Here I was, kneeling in the middle of the road which was really wet as it had been raining that day, with a huge belly, singing “Row Row your boat” to keep count of the chest compressions and trying not to shit myself waiting for more help.

After a few minutes doing solo compressions and silently praying for the man not to die, I could finally hear sirens and knew that more help was on the way. Soon the firemen with their big muscley arms had taken over doing the compressions and I could try and recollect my thoughts and give them a handover of the situation I had found myself in. The ambulance was soon also at the scene, the road cordoned off and a mini emergency room set up in the middle of the road as they tried to stabilise the patient before transfer to hospital.

I quickly dried my pants and retreated back into the medical center to see my patients who had apparently been impatiently getting mad at the receptionists for not being seen on time despite the lights and sirens they could clearly see and hear from the waiting room. I completed my evening shift and headed home where the emotions took over as I cried, recalling and finally processing the events of the evening as I debriefed with hubby. The following day, I found out that the elderly man had survived and was admitted to intensive care. I got to meet his lovely wife the next day who couldn’t stop expressing how grateful she was for our actions as well as stroking my obviously humongous baby bump.

As I reflect today on that day years ago, I am eternally grateful for the skills I have attained in my medical training and the ability I had to make such a big difference in the man’s life. I am also appreciative of the little changes I am able to contribute to my patients’ lives daily as I continuously work on collecting brownie points to heaven.

*Some names and locations changed to protect the patient and staff

*Image from Google