In the past week I have been slandered, insulted, even threatened. I have been called arrogant, egocentric, delusional and maniacal… In fact, they have said they may not allow me to pass my “part 6 (sic) MBBS exams”. Interestingly, majority of such statements came from a particular profession more than others; yes, the very ones I said must have been taught sauciness in school. Well, I am a doctor, to be, and I hereby, here and now, pledge allegiance to, and pitch my tent with, Doctors– the ones with powers to pass me, or not.
Perhaps I have been biased in my stance. Perhaps.
In this sequel to CONSULTANT, My FOOT, and The Eyes of JANUS, I shall therefore endeavor to set aside passion and emotion, affiliation and allegiance, set the issues raised on the table, and discuss them openly. For the truth is, everyone has been toying with the truth– as the Yoruba say, Kò s’ẹ́ni tí kìí kọ ebè s’ọ́dọ̀ ara ẹ̀; no one hoes the soil away from himself. But the Yoruba also say, ẹjọ́ ò ní jẹ́ ẹjọ́ ẹni k’á má mọ̀ọ́ dá; one cannot have a matter and not know how to judge it.
When I said…
When I said the politician like everyone else wants (his credentials) to be doctored, not nursed, I was referring to the modern trend of everyone being doctors, PhD holders, even when such certificates are bought or forged.
When I said other health workers did la cram, la pour in school, I didn’t mean there were no brilliant students in those courses. I meant most of them cram structures, equations, doctrines,… I meant in Medicine, more than anywhere else, cramming is a tricky art for one needs in-depth understanding and demonstrable applicability to survive– particularly the clinical exams, and ward rounds.
These days where the mundane is hyped, and the mediocre is celebrated, it is just so easy to lose focus, to show off stupidity, and to profit from ignorance. Since these days, service has been mutated to counter-servitude, and privilege has jumped borders: it used to be a privilege to serve, now it is a privilege to be served, even by one’s own representative. Service was a job, contested for, sworn for, and slaved for; now service is tyranny, an avenue to detain and harass familial enemies, a means to circumvolve diffidents, subdue dissidents, and propagate familiar, unconstitutional, policies, and a means to an end no less.
So that these days, every elected human (human, not official; perhaps calling them ‘official’ is why they act like slave masters) want reelection, deservedly or not. So that these days when I go to the market square, its modern equivalent, rather, it is hard to not notice those two large billboards urging the reelection of a certain Rep and citing somnolent soliloquized accomplishments, accomplishments that, in my entitled opinion, belie a four-year tenure. So that as soon as I acknowledge the ventriloquial message, “•••• lafé léèkan si”, meaning, ‘we want •••• one more time’, I smile. And that is all one can do. Àbí? I smile because I’d rather not laugh, mock, or scorn. I smile because I’m privy to letdowns at the hand of our man, and at a pivotal time too. I smile so I may not cry…
Since I know that not everything is money, monetary or infrastructure– that is how those of us not savoring the fabulous National Cake, and not even enjoying the crumbs off the fabled table, yet live from day to day in our diabetic land, a land of hunger in the midst of plenty. No bursary, no scholarship; yet we paid extra school fees for which receipts are yet inaccessible after four months, and even the political, sorry, publicized, reduction in school fees is not to take effect until another six.
Nay; not everything is in terms of how much funds an elected has in hand to conceive and execute worthwhile projects, lest sycophants say he would have done much more had he had the funds. Not everything is in Naira and kobo; some things are just integrity, plain and simple, and the lack thereof. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, the head thinketh, and the hand doeth. At least that is the sequence the political species operate: promise first, think later… acknowledge, assuage, assure, abnegate, then abrogate and abscond; àbí?
I was meant to have three uncles, just three. I never met one – In person – but I read (with) him, read his books, his notes, and saw his spirit, his drive; I do not know what he looked like, yet he taught me: he taught me to dare.
My other uncle nurtured me from afar; I learnt by osmosis. He once said he’d not have (or take) whatever God had not given him. So in his short, fulfilling, life – no but’s – he taught me that Pastors are not God, that Winners are made and not enslaved, that right is forever right irrespective of what any Pastor says; and, most importantly, he taught me contentment.
My third uncle is the first. He taught me from Pluto, he taught me by radiation. He is a genius, and I learn to be one. I pretend not to listen to him, and he in turn pretends not to notice, but I do, and he does. I inform him whenever I want to start something, not so much for his monetary input, but so that he can discourage me – as he should – and I can go ahead anyway (making adjustments for his concerns) – as I should. He teaches me caution, a by-product of anticipation.
So that whatever and whoever I am today and forever I owe it (in part) to these three people – and I am always indebted to my father, who made me (painfully). Of course, I pick up lessons as I go on: I recently saw what personal ambition can do to a Church – or any organisation for that matter. I recently observed how comparison and strife can ruin peace and progress.
Newton had said if he saw further than his peers, it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants; well, I have seen. I see how my forebears forever change me: I learnt diligence from my father, and camouflage from his mother. In fact, as much as I can remember, the only word Father ever taught me was “diligence” – it just so happened that I hadn’t known that word at the time.
All these people together influence(d) the way I eat my mango: daringly, cautiously and contentedly, diligently and in camera.
“I swear by Apollo, Asclepius, Hygeia, and Panacea…
and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses…
I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to
my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone…”
– The Hippocratic Oath.
Hippocrates was a man given to care and seldom receiving in return. He
was the greatest physician in antiquity, he is our Father, he is the
reason we are. He is the reason they say we ask for too much when we
ask for our rights: when we ask to be granted the same promotions and
privileges as other health workers who, ironically, say we receive too
much more than they do; when we ask to also skip level twelve of the
civil service promotion scale like the rest do who aim to remove the
“para-” from their designation; when we rise against the ridicule of a
highly esteemed title. He is the reason they scorn us.
Like a true Doctor, he led by example, taught Medicine on the Island
of Kos, Greece, some four and a half centuries before Christ, and
healed- or, helped many to heal, as those who futilely struggle to be
us would rather we say lest we be our egocentric selves again. He
became the Father of modern Medicine, and our Oath is named after him.
He provided humanitarian service, and that is why the power-hungry
ones expect charitable servitude from us… Continue reading →
Everyone wants to be a doctor, yet not everyone wants to be a
“medicine man”. Every parent wants to have a doctor as a child, to be
called Mama Doctor, Papa Doctor; even if such child is actually a(n
unlicensed) patent medicine dispenser. Yes, ours is a society of
vanities, so that even the dumb politician pays (for his credentials)
to be doctored– not nursed. And now that “doctor” has become a dime a
dozen, they have set eyes on Consultant.
It all started many years ago when other health students were taught
that Medical Students were no better than them, that they had all it
took to compete with us and displace us, that the ELEMENTARY human
anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, pathology, paediatrics, obstetrics
and/or gynaecology that Medical Doctors taught their forebears to
upgrade them from Diploma holders to BSc carriers are enough armament
to fight us. So much for gratitude!
They were told that they are the generational ones, as against the
previous, orthodox, ones. They were told to give us hell. And why
shouldn’t they? After all, knowledge puffeth up– as does ignorance.
They were told they could be us. Yet, if we were no better, why then
be us?
The reason is obvious. It is half-knowledge. And it is all they
possess. It is half, not because it did not spend so long in school,
which it didn’t; or because it did not have a curriculum half as
comprehensive, which, again, it didn’t. It is half because it cannot
cure the patient; because it needs the Doctor (for it) to function
optimally; because it is, as my pharmacy wife put it, la cram, la
pour. And as the Yoruba observe,
And as with everything indoctrination, it was swallowed hook, line and
sinker by every Tom, Dick and Harry– and still is. The first symptom
was the protracted arguments with any medical student they could find,
ranting about how we know the same things, GENERATIONAL (emphasis
theirs) nurses that they (now) are; BSc nursing students more so than
School of Nursing folk… The first sign was conducting their own ward
rounds. And finally the chameleon has shown us its colour:
Consultancy.
I have not bothered to read the numerous (read: innumerable) reasons
they must have given. I am a Nigerian; I know how manifestos are
written for and crammed by– la cram, la pour–; I know that the leaf
dancing atop the river dances to tunes from beneath the waters. They
feel that spending a lifetime with myriads of doctors makes them at
least as good as one. Yet, spending a lifetime in court does not make
one a Judge; for the robes do not make the Pope, neither does the hat.
Or does it now? now that we have GENERATIONAL blah-blah-blah– emphasis
mine.
And again, if we are no better, why do male nurses so want to be us?
Could it be because they feel so out of place in an overwhelmingly
feminine profession that injures their ego, that will not even allow
them be midwives, or is it midhusbands? Could it be that the title
Consultant will soothe such injured ego hitherto (barely) bandaged by
CNO-ship? No, it is not personal– yet.
He who comes to Equity must come with clean hands, and not protect
their own interests, their own traditions, while they fight others’
status quo: Nurses, for example, hold onto their tradition that
midwifery is the exclusive domain of females; how then can they
protest our tradition that Consultancy is the exclusive reserve of
Doctors? Shall we talk about pharmacists, technologists, and whoever
else waka come?
Personally, I do not mind having C. Nurses, Pharmacists,
Technologists, or whoever else waka come. Already, na the whole world
sabi say no be only Doctors waka come. Plus, eventually there will be
only one Consultant, and that will be the one that always was: us. Yet
have I found myself wondering if they just have hidden agenda, if
coveting our Consultancy a step toward much more sinister objectives!
So that I fear for the consequences of this theft. I fear for our
society. I fear for posterity. For our society is one where every
chemist shop is a hospital, where “doctors” are seen, injections given
and abortions done; where everyone working in a hospital is a Doctor,
even a brown-uniformed orderly (that instructed one patient to X-ray
his infant’s testicles; and another, his wife’s pregnancy; yes, I said
X-RAY, not ultrasound); where a Nurse forgets a tight tourniquet on a
neonate for so long that she nearly ruins his arm; where Pharm D is
misconstrued to be a means of turning pharmacy students into Medical
Doctors as against PhD-holding pharmacists. Alas, everyone wants to be
a Medical Doctor, even when they say we are no better!…
No, this is not to say Doctors are perfect; we are only a lot safer. I
for one have been in Medical School for 9 years and I’m finally in
final year! Na beans? All so I can be a lot safer; abegi just leave
ASUU out of it. If I had read Nursing for instance, even at BSc level,
I would be a lot more than I am: I would have been in the Civil
Service for some four years, I should be a Professor by now! Yet am I
still here saying Yes, Ma to even nurses I am older than and way
better than, saying Sorry, Ma to nurses that were in SS-what when I
was already in Med School. Abegi, no provoke me o!
Sentiments aside, If our purpose of working in the Health Sector is
the wellbeing of the patient, how does the (overbloated ego of the)
C. Nurse/Pharmacist/Technologist help the mission, other than creating
the proverbial two-captains-in-a-ship?– and we all know how that ends.
And it is in this spirit that I salute the ongoing NMA strike action.
It is not at all sentimental; it is not to show the superiority
complex that Doctors are said to have; it is not to display that
we are gods on earth
that they say we are
bearing in hands the powers of life and death
that we actually do bear;
it is to verify what the others have said.
They have said that Doctors are no big deal. They have said they can
do our work. They have even said they are more important. Well, this
is Nigeria: all talk and no walk. Or can they walk the talk? Can they
admit patients? Can they manage patients on their own, or even
together sef? Can they discharge patients? Whatever happened to
‘Nurses own the wards but Doctors own the patients’?
Yet that will not be all: They have eyes on the position of Chief
Medical Director. Being Permanent Secretaries of Ministries of Health
is not enough, they want to run hospitals and own them. So they can
kill unsuspecting masses– like they already do in the chemist shops
cum abortion centres some of them run, even orderlies?
Yet this is past nipping in the bud: they have become an undying
hydra-headed monster; cutting off a head, an ambition, only brings two
in its place!
Oh, where are the eyes of Medusa?
Ayokunle Ayk Fowosire.
Sagamu.
And peradventure my position is yet ambiguous, nurses own the wards,
techs own the labs and Doctors own the patients. Which is the
greatest?: wards, labs or patients?; which would YOU rather be?
Abegi, anyone that wants to be a Consultant (and particularly Chief
Medical Director) should enroll in a Medical School o jare; JAMB is yet
conducting UTME. And when you don’t make that annoyingly high score,
don’t quit, don’t go to School of Nursing or School of Health, keep
writing JAMB every year. Trust me; you will get in– eventually…
And by the time you have finally wriggled out of Med School and
Residency having failed many an exam, you will have understood why
many a parent screams Praise the Lord at Inductions into the medical
profession, and why Chief Medical Director remains the exclusive
reserve of Doctors.
And only then can you truly be a Consultant– without My FOOT!
Potential is life; and life is potential; since potential is the
ability to be and to do. Life is itself a collection of cells, after
all, the cell is the basic structural and functional unit of life. A
cell is that device that converts (inherent) chemical energy into
electric charge – even the biological cell generates charges:
phosphates, in ATP and DNA, for example.
The fuel cell, like solar energy from the Sun, itself a mega cell, is
the future – at least for transportation. Therefore the cell, like
each of us, has potential: The potential of a cell, a battery, is a
measure of the (electromotive) force acting across its terminals; it
is the force experienced by a unit charge as it moves from one pole to
the other.
The cell, like everything else with potential, has assets, raw
materials, and liabilities, wastes. For non-rechargeable cells, the
waste clogs the system, hinders the reactions, stops power generation,
stops productivity- and usefulness; now you know why your wall clock
or torch battery leaks water in the long run. For rechargeable cells,
passing current in the reverse direction undoes the hindrance of
productivity by forcing precipitates back into solution, liabilities
back into assets.
At this juncture, I consider it rather repetitive to again say every
business has potential, and rather instructive that I say that, like
every cell, each business has assets and liabilities, and that
businesses run down when liabilities clog the system, when the point
of rechargeability is crossed. And rather than agitate words and prove
theorems like I did in The Profit PERCENT, I shall simply share a
common scenario and hope you sift the grain from the chaff:
Mr. A started a business and in a short while, he hit the jackpot. What
should he do with the proceeds? Most people would agree that that
money ought to be spent; the dichotomy is invariably in how! (Yes, a
few people would advocate saving and seeing how the business next
fared.)
Of those in support of spending, some would suggest he pay himself for
his time and effort and sacrifice, that he share his good fortune with
family and friends, that he spread the wealth, that he buy an
automobile to feel among…, maybe even marry (another) wife, or build
(another) house.
Some would suggest that he reinvest the money, that he put it back
into the business.
I would not suggest any of the aforementioned options, however, and this is why:
Common sense suggests that Mr. A not spend the money needlessly. Need I
say more? What happens if the market crashes? What happens to having a
little savings, a little backup? As Jesus said, a wise man builds on
a rock in anticipation of the storm; a wise man keeps money in fishes’
mouths.
In modern times, markets are ever dynamic, a factor that continues to
produce Recession after Recession. That the market is profitable today
does not speak for tomorrow: anything can happen; the future is not
written in stone.
If Mr. A invests his profit in his business, he will increase his
stock, but not likely his carrying capacity. This of course will
affect his business. Cramming goods affects presentation, appeal,
marketability, as well as shelf life and durability.
But whether or not that happens, this is sure to: More people will
flock into Mr. A’s business. (Who doesn’t like a profitable business?)
Consequently there will be a glut: supply increases, prices fall, and
profits crash, just when Mr. A has increased stock! Lóbátán!
Hence, there is no doubt that Mr. A must keep his money. But how? In
hand, in banks, or in something else?
As a bird in hand is worth more than two in the bush, is cash in hand
worth more than bonds and cheques, bank drafts and promissory notes,
in emergency and especially in robbery? (The latter case however may
be one reason to be cashless.) On the other hand, while cash in banks
is safe, it does not appreciate as such, and can easily be trapped.
Ever queued at a bank or an ATM point?
In essence, Mr. A should keep his profits in a venture that is secure,
that appreciates over time, that can be easily converted into cash or
used as collateral. And that, more importantly, can be useful to him
(and his business) in the future.
A car is what everyone thinks of first. The first “asset” Father had
was a car, for which he paid dearly in envy and rents – and, of
course, cars depreciate. (And just before you laugh, please be
reminded that he remains the best businessman I know.) He subsequently
kept me off his cars, the best thing he did for me besides education.
(Now you may laugh: at moi.) The rest is history, story for another
day… Maybe in the next article in this series, The POTENTIAL VI: The
Way You Eat Your Mango.
That said, the only venture that comes to mind is LAND. And that to me
is the ultimate asset…
Yes, that business can yet be salvaged if you will treat it as a
rechargeable battery, pass life into it and see it revive: Break
forth, stay within limits, mind your own business, and stay true to
purpose. If you will build assets and part with liabilities, and see
your business thrive.
Catch my drift?… Assets; not liabilities, not luxuries, not cars.
And you may even buy for two; you and me nooni, I need it just as much
as you do.
Why land? It secures the future. It makes for a good collateral. It
appreciates over time. It is not commonplace, not replaceable, not
destructible. It is the future.
Of course, there are rules pertaining to where and how – and where NOT
– perhaps in a future article (if) prompted by popular demand.
However, suffice it to say at this time that one must get his
documentations right, and NEVER forget to hire a good lawyer – his
commission will never kill, it merely makes you stronger.
For legal aid, contact me; I happen to know just the lawyer for you.
#Youths, Save Nigeria. Start businesses. Acquire assets (and no forget
me o). It’s our turn!
“They have said you cannot pass JAMB at one sitting. That is not true.
They have said you must write WAEC, NECO, GCE, and whatever similar
exam you can find so you may at least pass one. That too is not true.
They have said you must permutate your WAEC, NECO and GCE results to
gain admission into university. That cannot be true.”
…That is how I strike the chord. That is how I gain their attention.
That is how I interest their intellect.
I happen to be a Member of Faculty of one or more NGOs whose primary
duty is the development of our teenagers, the encouragement of our
youngsters, the dedication to our collective future as a State. And
when it is my turn to speak, it is my turn to unearth their fears and
expose their anxiety, to illuminate their demons and brighten their
hope, to give them another chance, another thought, another
perspective.
