“Today I survived.”

She murmurs under her breath. She made it through another day. She has grown tough skin and words no longer hurt as they did before. Some days are good, others bad. On bad days, her underbelly is attacked and on such days she is glad she survived.

She is a medical student in her pre-finalist clinical year. Her days mainly involve attending ward rounds and clinical work in the teaching hospital. Intimidation, commonly referred to as ‘roasting, is the norm for students in the wards. Her confidence has suffered a large blow that it barely holds on to dear life. Self-doubt has since rooted in her and it is a constant battle to let a little confidence out. She has seen her classmates heavily chastised for replying with similar responses to those in her head. On such occasions, she is glad she held her tongue. She has been thoroughly embarrassed for breaking sterility protocols when she barely knew they existed. It was the first day in the wards. She has been called out for taking too long to wear sterile gloves on her first try. She had been disregarded for not knowing what is termed basic. Too wounded is her confidence to barely ask a question ad she is still haunted by the responses from previous attempts. An anxiety cloud adamantly hangs over her.

Her experience is similar to that of other medical students. Some of the most confident and brilliant people are reduced to a level of barely surviving. Their minds are wired to always know. To have the information at their fingertips and this unforgiving mindset only worsens their already weakened self-esteem in the event they do not know. Self-doubt creeps in and big dreams of leading a passionate career slowly dwindle into thin air.

Promising lives turn into existential lives. Existing to attain a 50+1 and proceed to the next academic year. Existing to go through med school with enough sanity. Existing to get through the internship. Life is no longer about living but about existing and surviving.
What of the pressure to deliver the best? The pressure to retain medical information. The pressure to always be right or at least not far from it. The pressure to have a functional social life. The pressure to live the life of a daktari.
How can you not have this or that, aren’t you doctor?
The title comes with huge expectations. Wedding and Harambee contributions are expected to be as heavy as the title while the Daktari can hardly live.
A hard-earned title becomes a burden, at times too heavy to bear.
Frustrated medical students make it to the consultants’ cadre and prey on your medical students and junior colleagues. A vicious cycle it becomes and another batch of intimidated yet revenge-hungry healthcare workers are churned out.
So normalized is the demeaning nature of training that somehow everyone is expected to adapt. It is laughed off in discussion groups and friends groups and life seems to move on waiting for the next ridicule. In public, many wear strong faces and put on the ‘all is fine’ facade while in solitude they break down and question their worth. How then do you genuinely complain about it when you laughed about it? How do you show that your adaption is taking a day longer? Uniquely, everyone adapts differently. The goal is to eventually not let the demeanor deter you. However, this takes different times for everyone. What happens when the process takes a little too long? Most hold it in till they can hold it no more and sadly that is too late.

Healthcare workers are expected to adapt, and handle their mental health but still be physically and emotionally present for their patients. What happens when they can’t handle both? They are accused of not being good enough. The doctors take care of the patients,  who takes care of the doctors?

With the rise of physician suicide, it only is fit to ask,
Is the training process contributing to physician depression?

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Heeey guys
Thank you for reading through this post.
What are your thoughts? Do you think the training process is contributing to physician depression and suicide?
I would love it if you commented down below.
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