Knowing Your Why

Hello everyone! I hope y’all are enjoying your Sunday?
Just wanted to drop a lil’ something here for you guys, kinda like take you on a walk through my mind this lovely Sunday evening.
This post is specially for the young medical students out there, young medical doctors like myself and even to those of you aspiring to join the medical profession someday. I must also plead that you bear with me as this post might be a tad bit longer than usual, but totally worth the read😘

For those of you who don’t know me outside this blog, I finished medical school last year and currently, I’m doing my house job somewhere like that 😁, and believe me when I say, I’m so relieved to be done with medical school,I mean, that was some scary, but interesting experience( maybe I’ll tell y’all about it someday).

Now, I’m pretty sure I was one of those kids who got into medical school with dreams of becoming the next big thing after Dr.Benjamin Carson, well, that was up until shit started getting real, then it became a battle of  “God, please let me just graduate in one piece and get out of here”😓.
And now, I’m here, I’m out, done with school. Now, I get to face the real world, and starting housejob, I realize that this isn’t med.school anymore where the goal was just to cram lecture notes & textbooks to pass exams, now, it gets real cos’ I’m going to be faced with real human lives, and that realization is both scary and motivating.

It’s motivating in the sense that, that feeling I had before starting med.school? the dream of becoming the next Dr. Ben Carson?that feeling is back, but this time, it’s not about becoming the next Dr.this or Dr.that, No! This time, it’s about making sure I become the best medical doctor that I can possibly be.

It’s scary in the sense that I see how always stressed & over-worked doctors are, & I find myself wondering if I can cope, if I can meet up, if my efforts will be enough for my patients.

So today, I’d like to share a story from one of my colleagues that really hit deep, and just strengthened my resolve. I hope this inspires or encourages other young meds out there.

                              KNOWING YOUR WHY

So I discharged a patient yesterday after two long months in the hospital during which she had a “Total Mandibulectomy” and two other minor surgeries done on her neck.(simply put, a mandibulectomy is a surgical procedure in which the jaw bone (mandible) is removed, and can be due to a number of reasons, eg,in cases where a tumor has invaded the jawbone).
She is a teenager, with a now not so wonderful face & can barely make audible words.

I was in a conversation with a nurse in the ward when she walked up to me with tears in her eyes. I wasn’t sure what to expect and I wasn’t really sure what to say at that point, so I simply said, “congratulations, I’m happy for you, you’re finally going home”.
But at that moment, she hugged me real tight, stepped back and said, “Doctor, thank you very much for all your support, and for never leaving my side, some people might not have been that patient with me. I will miss you!”

I could feel the tears building up in my eyes, but I wasn’t about to get all overly mushy in front of all the patients in the ward🤥 . I smiled as I said “you’re welcome”.

You see ehn, this work of ours can be very tedious, gruesome, and sometimes downright depressing, let’s not forget the fact that we’re underpaid half the time, but at that moment, standing right there, looking at that little girl, it was worth it, every sleepless night, every stressful procedure, the long hours at work, every word of prayer offered up for her was all worth it.

The nurse was full of “eyaaahs and awwws “ and was grinning from ear to ear, and to be honest, I was feeling all warm inside.
Well, I’m gonna be happy for a whole week(at least)... and hell yeah! I can say I deserve to be...
Sometimes, it's important to know and remember your "why", why you do what you do every single day .

                                                                                                                Dr. Pharoah Ozoemena.