To Proud Doctors – It’s Not Always About You

By Vanessa Onyema: 

I have always heard of this saying ‘Doctors are proud’, but I never completely understood what that meant.

Maybe doctors have a reason to be proud, because they save lives.

My first fictional meeting with a proud doctor was with Dr Stephen Strange, and as they say pride goes before downfall. He understood that it wasn’t always about him.

So to the Proud Doctors: it is not about you. It is not because you spent a greater part of your life in school, while others were steps

ahead. You should not regard others as inferior because your course puts you at the top of the pyramid.

It takes a lot of things to make up a whole; so for one part to work, it must move with the other. Irrespective of what someone studied, or did not study, that person plays a vital role in evolution.

Don’t look at me and say I wasted my time in school studying a course. It is not right. No one wastes time to study and no knowledge is a waste.

The ability to save lives is a gift, and should not be joked with. It’s not what you get from tons of texts. It is what makes your hands not to shake in the theatre. It is what makes you give the accurate diagnosis. It is what makes you know that series of headaches is not directly proportional to MP and tidal test.

The Nigerian health care system is a mess because many are clueless about their profession. It is always the case of my parents told me to study medicine and surgery – hence the influx of people standing by with dissection kit to create chaos. Parents should as well learn not to dictate or pressure their kids into their choice of profession all because of the title.

The less people study medicine and actually study it, the better for us.

Should I blame it on the educational system and the use of conventional method? I will not; because a course as delicate as that, in an institution with substandard materials and a non-conducive learning environment should receive accreditation for the course to be studied.

Precious lives are lost daily to negligence and inaccuracy in diagnosis. How long will we fold our hands and watch ourselves crumble to quacks in lab coats? It can only be grace.

I can only accept the show of pride if there is something to show for it, because the gift of saving lives cannot be overemphasised. Take real pride in your work.