One step closer to the dream. Finally!

The first day of the clinical year is a day all pre-clinical student doctors look forward to. Finally, you get to walk into a hospital from the other side, not a patient side. The doctor’s side.
Strangers will call you Daktari and for that one minute, you will drown in the pride that comes with the title. You will feel obligated to help, but then realization number one hits you; you are at the bottom of the food chain and there is only so much you can do. Relatives will stop you in the corridors to ask for directions when you can barely remember your way out of the wards. Some will stop you to ask what will happen to their patients and then once again you realize you are at the bottom of the food chain and there is nothing you can do.
Patients will stop you as well, some in pain some in despair. Some will hand you their lab test results and even x-ray films hoping you can decipher the scientific language for their understanding. But then, there you stand with residual physiology and anatomy knowledge.
The doctor’s side also comes with consultant specialists. Aren’t they figures of admiration? They come to ward rounds in t-shirts and jeans and borrow your stethoscope or porch. On the other hand, the student doctor is officially dressed even in a tie and expected to have everything. That is when realization number two hits you; ‘wewe ni mwanafunzi daktari sio daktari’
Ward rounds are fascinating. You get to meet pathologies explained in ‘Robbin’s Basic Pathology’ in person. It is all fun and laughter till the question lands on you. The question from that topic that you were to read the previous night but slept instead. The question from that one lecture you missed. Or maybe it is a question to which you have the answer but it just skips your mind at that moment.
You keep quiet. you choose silence over an embarrassing answer. The spotlight is on you but the light is too much it scorches. If you are lucky, the question will be passed on to the next. If not, then my friend, you will have to come up with something.
Some consultants are gracious enough to guide your line of thought while others will make sure that you never have the confidence to willingly answer a question again.
For the longest time, harshness has been part of how medicine is taught. “Tough times lie ahead,” they say.” we have to prepare you.”
But sir, I need to be confident to handle those tough times, don’t I?
I firmly believe there is a difference between strictness and harshness. The curriculum in medical school is strenuous on its own, the personal and societal expectations only make the situation worse. Add harsh lecturers to that combination and that makes the perfect recipe for disaster.
I am certain every student doctor has at one point in their school life reached rock bottom because nothing seems to work out. Heavy exams, demoralizing lecturers, the list is endless. It gets to a point that it is unbearable and without a good support system, some students crush. At this point. realization number three hits; grow a thick skin!
Passion and ambition slowly turn into desperation to attain the bare minimum (50%) and proceed to the next academic year without a supplementary exam or a retake. The creme de la creme is slowly churned into a pulp that can barely mirror its former glory.
By graduation day, you are only grateful that finally, you are free from the shackles. But then residency awaits. It is a vicious toxic cycle. These students become doctors and join the healthcare workforce, demotivated and only doing it because six years is too long a time to waste.
What happens to the top scorers who passionately want to be neurosurgeons and cardiothoracic surgeons? At what point does the flame dwindle away? Does it go off naturally or does someone cut off its oxygen?
Med school can get crazy stressful and this is when realization number four hits; it is not a do or die! if you feel you need to take a break, do it. be intentional and create time for your hobbies.
This life no wahala!
Cheers to us who have gotten this far!

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