IDENTITY CRISIS

Its approximately three weeks for me to begin my internship as my first posting as a medical officer. I am reeling at this once in a lifetime opportunity and at times stay up the night thinking about it. My thoughts meander into the beauty of practice and the smile of a hopeless patient who then notices he/she still has another shot at life. I guess that is what it would mean to make lives better literally. When dawn reigns after dusk, I struggle to get out of my bed, I then remind myself that it is about time.

With that in mind, I can’t then fathom why my mind conjures at times to cause this restlessness especially during this period. I have had encounters where I need to introduce myself and am just mute for that period as the other person looks at me questioningly. The results have been out for almost two months now for almost everybody is aware that I am a doctor but why then do I stutter.

I have at times been called a medical student which is what I was and at such times my body has been shuddered into overriding cautiousness. Then the times I am referred to as “Doctor Ismael” and it seems more surreal than I have ever imagined or gloated. You could be wondering what then do I need if am not comfortable in my coatings that I have sown myself.

I like to think that I am just confused and as such this shall cease when internship start, a time I will have a different identification to the one I used to put on while at school.

Becoming a doctor is one scenario but to have everyone calling you doctor so and so is yet another case. One becomes a doctor after completing a medical, veterinary degree or a PhD in any of the other courses. Which makes it purely academic in all regards. So becoming a doctor is a recognition of an accomplishment of an academic feat that one should bask in its glory. However to be called a doctor, shows not just a personal recognition but a community recognition of your importance, stature and almost near “immortality”.

With this in mind, I still can’t get myself to getting comfortable yet. This transition period has been most trying in identity crisis. More like when a teenager is confused about being suddenly recognized as an adult. I guess we all (may be the majority) do have a time when identity crisis sets in, I just didn’t expect mine to be this one!

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There are7 days in a week, 168hours, 10140mminutes and so many microseconds. Point is there is so much time in a week but at times it might just feel like a day or even eternity depending on the events that have occurred.

This ending week shall forever be embalmed in my history memory for finally my special guest arrived. She weighed 3.0kg and she made it at exactly1312hrs on 10^th-7-2012 (I won’t even complain for passing on my offer to share my day). An entrance she made, an instant miss congeniality she became but the calmness she reserves leaves you in admiration.

More in admiration is the most amazing person who ensured her safe arrival for all this time. For now am still in a writers’ block due to this event that seems to last forever.

We shall capture up soon for more to come from the mirror story.

JULY 2

It started on Monday `

“To be or not to be..” it must be from Hamlet.

Sometimes I wish my mind would make up sleazing nice stuff like Shakespeare used to. The marveling at me would definitely go up tenfold, a concern that is so trivial at the moment. May be that gift will need a little more honing and finer touch. Of course, that need is usually driven by demand and resources as the usual allies.

Another week and the exhaustion is unimaginable. I thought I was in my holidays which I am. Recently a revelation was made to me that I always have to do a million and one activities and am still ignorant to the actual meaning.

Still working on the autopsy research study and have so far given myself one opportunity to “scrub” in one. Quite a revering experience that one, I should think of a movie scene where I dash out in an unexpected turn of events. You have to imagine that one yourself.

Monday a very unlikely day to celebrate your jubilee but in this case it happened to be me. A gush of pride and jolly old feelings of being born, indeed I was in my happy self, managing to greet every one with a smile, an effort with a few kilo joules this time done without a wince spent. Birthdays, I still wonder why such feelings have to be when you have grown this much. Investigations will begin when this one is steered well clear of. A gratitude to my sisters who made it more special than I imagined a pound I must have earned in that night.

In style the week had begun but the anticipation is still on, this person is asking too much from me. Patience a rare virtue for even a doctor. I however have to exercise my utmost until Monday, a scary feeling by the one supposed to labor. Not sure where my non medical feelings went, but at this time the countdown has begun 4weeks and 4days to the dreaded internship. My future patients be aware, this vacancy will only open then.

Before the week could end I had the fortune of meeting friends I had last seen 3-5years ago. A group destined for greatness you could tell. The beach provided an ideal environment for such a meeting even when I unfortunately couldn’t complete such a wonderful night with these people. Next time it will be bigger and better, coffee we ought to do.

FACT OR FICTION?

When your week begins in an unlikely format, it’s hard to fathom which devil whose path you crossed unknowingly. In my culture the blame would be on the first person you saw on your way from home. Still in primary school, I came across a proverb; “a bad beginning makes a good ending” but no one would admit to fantasying it to come true. It would be akin to a story book character that goes through trials to eventually emerge successful or a hero in what he/she does.

There is some truth to such story book characters despite the wild imaginations usually implored by the authors, most actually do research in these facts. Sometimes it’s such a hard task to discern facts from fictions even in our daily lives. You might at times pause in your actions as something/ person seems beyond your comprehension, at that time you assume it is fiction and it will pass by.

Last week begun as such, a normal initial appointment hadn’t prepared me for a second unplanned meeting that I thought could save me a lot of effort if I had it then. For a moment I thought it was my fiction world and I needed a hero of myself. Trust, maybe I should have taken the mantle of heroism but the imminent memories of characters like those of titanic keeps a cautious side of me alive.

Up to this time I can’t explain why someone, who certainly was a student at one time, could claim he doesn’t speak to students who have research to do. Research he believes should be left to the specialists, the world is indeed coming to naught with such madness lingering on.

That incidence couldn’t freeze time so life had to move on and indeed it was proof that selfish and egoistical people are a minute fraction of the world’s population. With the other part of my study (“Autopsy study…..” as I was being accused of grabbing a pathologist’s role when am a mere student) going on smoothly as I met more nice people and yes I met those I hadn’t seen in years.

Relations I had for long taken a back came to light and by unknown cosmic coincidence of taking paths I wouldn’t have. There is more evidence of the existence of a supernatural being than science might attempt to explain. With a good feeling to culminate a week after a good conversation with a colleague about biostatistics and publications makes me more determined to pursue my dream of clinical research.

At this time, the feeling however elated, albeit a bit from the low set point on Monday, a special guest is yet to arrive. In anticipation, I am and with hope I pray we make a tag team with my special guest and of course the wonderful person making this possible.

MY NEXT FOOTSTEP

I actually can’t put a mental note to the time my holidays started. All the memory drums up is the last days of merry making the semester came with. With the accolade of student of the year award, what more could I ask for from an action packed year five was for me.

Well, the action mainly came from the leadership tasks I assigned myself to or was assigned to accomplish. This combined with the obvious busts of clinical medicine, surgery, pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology, I could not ask for more.

Now that school is over, the tasks have decreased tremendously. For starters, there are no ward assignments to crumble out of bed for to catch up with. There are no patients to clerk and keep up with but this won’t be long as internship seems to be glaring up sooner than I can imagine.

Finishing school comes with a lot of relief especially if you have been in school for “FIVE” years. One is overwhelmed by excitement and at this time the parties for the usually “dull” medics were on top gear. Dull if you think we are anyway but I differ in that thinking.

When dawn comes after dusk, the question that you have been avoiding lingers back. This time more clear and definite. “What next?”

What next? Well the obvious answer is to rest and rest but that can be prosaic if you have been used to waking up very early, get patients’ blood results, perform a few minor procedures and yet at the same time rush for a 1000hrs appointment with a professor.

So what does someone do after all that, I could read novels till the heavens come down but I could not be still in one place for so long. Lucky for me, I have a research grant to carry out a study that could surely take some of my time but that is certainly not enough for a work junkie like I.

I got whirlwind on a job at some clinic but at this time it was stifling boring and I found myself shuffling my gait in another direction. Next stop is a research project within medical school, just something my mind craved for.

May be now my heart is in the right place and there is surely one way to find out. The mirror will always tell you what happened anyway.

I WAS CARRYING A BAG IN THE MIRROR!

The streets of Kampala are quite assorted with a number of commercial commodities despite a public ban. These commodities come in different categories but notably are bags, shoes and clothes and are usually strategically placed to stimulate your colliculus at the entrances of buildings. Despite the colour, not all is “golden” actually a lot is “not”. Making an effort to buy anything from these places is akin to making a spot on diagnosis of neurofibromatosis1 when someone else views indurated boils on a body.

Wonder not why the connotations to probably something you don’t understand and consider the similarity in the subjects within the article. My solemn advice is to explore your curiosity and head to the streets and buy some of these amazing commodities. Chances are you will back on the street within a year.

When you are first exposed to a child suffering from “staphylococcal skin scalded syndrome” your probable initial aphasic time when asked what is happening is to randomly think of a variety of names of dermatological conditions in your mind. This is usually in total disregard to what you are seeing most of the time cause “the eye sees/looks for what the mind knows.”

Like many novice medics, you are probably excited to make a complex diagnosis but as you dig deeper in the course, the realization of this comes to naught. In fact, agape you are when someone tells at the first meeting with a client that the diagnosis is scleroderma. As if to relieve your ignorance he then hands to you a book to read more after giving you a summary of what the patient had and why it is that particular diagnosis. Little does one wonder how he derived that diagnosis at sight and yet in your reading one ought to make some investigations involving the immunological system of the client.

Now imagine transferring you complex circuits of grey matter to come up with a sound judgment for the patient and involve this in purchasing a bag. Yeah I know what you are thinking; “what the hake?” but as u do that, how many bags have you bought in that last 2 years. You don’t even think about that cause they are definitely a good number. So the question is why? So what is in a bag any way?

For one never under estimate your time in elucidating the true nature of something. Patience and time, our generation foes are what is required to garner the experience needed. Of course you shall need experience to come up with the right perfect choice like you do when faced with a rare case of poly arteritis nodosa and all you need is a particular investigation to confirm that which you think. Indeed the skill involved in examining bags was exceptional to a lady friend of mine when I was fortunate to get her support in buying a suitable bag for a prized possession I had just acquired.

With an eye of a hawk she could “rubbish” the quality of a bag your eyes had fallen for and then with the hands that only belong to her she examines that one she suspects deserves her hand. Like all unsuspecting vendors, none was ready for this steadiness of being told how “fake” their product is. For some, sharing a crocodile smile was all they could manage.

From inspection of the texture, type to palpation of the thickness of the body, safety of the zips and stability of the handles all these principles were being applied to buying just “a bag”. I cant claim I am finished with my lessons even with a good grasp of the theory but if for a few more moments (not sure when these shall come by) of being an apprentice am supposed to be.

As we perused and examined different bags as I was being taught by someone I deemed my junior my mind wondered to much we miss in a hurry while at school. It’s obviously not a one day affaire but the presumption is if we give attention to the detail and be patient with it then the world will be a better place.

This is not a reserve of only the medics but in all fields where professionalism is a prerequisite ranging from traders to the politicians. The whole conundrum needs time to understand their niche and give it their best then, Africa shall be a place we are all glad to show off, not just for the sake of it.

I DON’T LIKE WAKING UP

As the dawn takes over the skies briskly, my mesencephalon decides to give sleep a “rest”, a decision disagreeable. To emphasize its point I being to fathom “how I am to start enrolling more subjects for my study.” Subjects for this study needed a larger team than I had imagined and now there is fault in using one protocol for all sites as some have their own working schedules and teams.

Now this grey matter within the vault is indicating I have to find out the pathologists if any for one of the site and inquire whether we could use our team. Of course this comes up as we need to buy certain reagents required in doing these sort of procedures. Procedures meant to make some professions “brighter” as my teachers used to say but unfortunately the rate of doing them has dwindled greatly

In case your curiosity takes over like mine did to do this sort of study, all I can say is I hope am not my own patient in this study (autopsies). As for my being up early it certainly could be the nerves that go on messing with my slumber. A nice slumber i had till this weird dream of me being in the same place with “Klaus” started. I survived and decided I had enough of that, so I had to witness the sunrise.

A beautiful sunrise it is this morning, I think for am still in my bed anyway and am not looking out. The weather is perfect for an extended leave within bed but the situation is crappy to continue one. I have an appointment about a project within medical school and that is actually why I have risen this early.

I am not sure what to expect out of this meeting but I suppose am to begin work on something I have been “craving” for. More and more projects because I am an adrenaline junkie, once there is no adrenaline the ability to jump start my day is a lot of work. Now this is the opportunity I was waiting for and my thinking is still in a maze I do hope to solve today.

I need to find the mirror after washup and I might promise to tell you what the mirror saw in me.