MEDICAL STUDENTSHORT STORIES

The Power of “I am a Medical Student”

Demilade Afolabi

400-level Dentistry & Dental Surgery

University of Ibadan

I try to stay out of trouble as much as possible, but I inexplicably have a way of just walking right into it. You may be wondering what kind of trouble it is I speak of. It is not usually serious, but that’s just me—you might consider it to be…after a closer look. As a young boy, whenever I got into problematic situations outside my home, my parents came to my rescue. Then, I got into medical school and realized that not only would my parents not always be there to bail me out but also that I did not really need them to. 

I

I was one of those kids who started driving without parental consent—that kind of thing that earned you respect in my secondary school. My parents did not give me the liberty to drive while I was in secondary school because they thought I was not ready. It was a case of driving an old manual transmission car that they practically abandoned. During one of my first experiences, I was driving with a couple of friends to a music studio. On the way, I was flagged down by a policeman who, by his expression, seemed like he had found a “yahoo boy” that was going to pay handsomely. One of my greatest fears is encountering law enforcement agencies while driving. I always worry that I could be arrested with little or no cause, even knowing that I could always call my father, a top-ranking officer in the Nigerian Immigration Service, and quite respected among other security agencies. Presently, I parked, and he asked me a host of questions; I also had to show him the contents of my boot. While he was still hounding me, I thought to mention that I was a medical student, and that worked like a charm! He just said, “Don’t bother. Have a nice day”. 

II

One week-day morning, a friend of mine who held an executive position in a student association came to my room to ask a favour—he wanted me to help convey a few students to a car park using the official bus of the association. I had never driven a bus before, but I said yes without a second thought and in no time, I was in the driver’s seat. As I waited for my passengers, I brushed up on my clutch-accelerator balance skill; and eventually, I didn’t do badly in getting them to their destination. I had my friend sitting beside me, and on our way back to our school, I was about negotiating a bend when the bus went off and stopped right in the middle of the opposing lanes. Plot twist: some 100 meters from where the bus stopped were road safety officials fishing for traffic offenders. My friend and I started panicking at the turn of events, I more than him because I was the driver. Our first thought was that we had just run out of fuel, and fortunately for us, there was a petrol station directly behind where the bus stopped. I flew down from the bus, grabbed a keg I found somewhere in the back and ran to the petrol station to buy some fuel. 

Keeping an eye on the bus from where I was, I was ardently praying under my breath that the road safety officials would not notice the bus. Before I completed my prayers, I saw one of them calling the attention of the others to the bus and motioning one of his colleagues to approach it. I decided to stay back at the petrol station and watch what would happen. When the officer got to the bus, peeped inside, and found nobody to accost, he reached in and took something from the front bus seat. It did not take me long to realise it was my phone he had taken. I knew I had to give myself up and face justice. I walked up to the bus with the keg of petrol and made myself quite visible to the officer who had just left. On sighting me, he came running back, and without saying much, told me to enter the bus and start driving to their office. I tried to greet him politely and say a few words to him to explain how we got there, but I guess they were trained not to listen to any explanation. He gave me back my phone on the spot, got into the bus, and asked me to get the bus moving towards the location of his office. I succeeded in explaining to him that I could not make that happen at the moment because I had run out of fuel. He got out and told us to refuel the bus. I lifted the keg of petrol I had put on the floor and started looking for where the fuel tank was located. He saw my confused state and asked if I was the owner of the bus. I did not answer him because I knew that regardless of my answer, I was in trouble. 

I found the fuel tank and started pouring the petrol in it. As I was filling the tank, I heard this hell-sent officer speaking with displeasure about the state of the tires of the bus and how we were in deep trouble for driving a road-unworthy vehicle. When I was done, he told me to get the bus started for the journey to their office; my friend got in beside me, while the officer sat behind him. I turned the ignition, and alas, it didn’t come to life. I tried again about three more times with no luck. The officer gave me some advice, which I tried without success. He then asked me to check if the battery was well seated in its compartment and had good contact with the main wires. I got out and went in front of the bus intending to open the bonnet—I figured too late that most buses did not have bonnets. The officer came down looking so perplexedly at me, and I could read from his facial expression that he knew I was not familiar with how the bus worked. He then volunteered to help me out, knowing that I was still going to pay heavily for all the crimes I had seemingly committed in the space of 37 minutes. He entered the bus, opened the battery compartment, and asked me to get a stone which he used to reset the “head of the battery”. He asked me to start the ignition and boom, his magic worked! My friend got in beside me, and with the officer comfortably seated as well, it was time for us to move. 

After thinking deeply for about 7.231 seconds, I got down from the bus and walked around to where the officer was seated. I opened the door and asked him to come down so we could talk. Of course, he kept showing that he wasn’t ready to negotiate with me. I spoke anyway without caring if he was going to listen to me or not. I said, “Mr Officer, I don’t think I would be able to follow you to your station right now because I have to be in theatre for a surgical operation in UCH, and I can’t afford to be late. My friend here has a free day and can follow you to the station, but he can’t drive. Here is the key to the bus—you can drive it to your office, and when I am done with the surgery, I will come and bail out the bus”. The officer stared at me in disbelief and, after some moments, came down from the bus and said to us, “Let me go and talk to my boss. I’ll get back to you”. My friend followed him to where his boss was seated, and after a while, he came back to tell me that his boss said we could go, apologizing for having delayed us. I didn’t exactly know how I felt at that moment, but I knew then that my worth on the market just increased. The best part was when the officer that was with us earlier came back to assist us with getting back on the road—by stopping incoming cars for us to make a turn without stress.

III

I was at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport earlier this year, checking into a 17-hour flight to a country in South-East Asia. This was the first international travel I would be making without my parents. I had gotten my boarding pass, cleared with immigration officials, and was at my final checkpoint with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency officials (NDLEA). On getting to their station, I put my hand luggage in one of the electronic scanners and waited at the other end to get my bag. After I took it off, I was signalled by one of the officers to move closer to him for questioning. He started off by asking me where and why I was going to the country I was going to. I answered him with all the boldness and pride I had in me. He then proceeded to ask questions that insinuated he suspected I was a “yahoo boy” and wanted me to drop “something” before he could release me.

I kept my cool until he asked me to open my hand luggage again, even after it had gone through the electronic scanner just in front of him. I then said to him, “I am a medical student at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan. I do not see any reason why you should be asking me these questions”. His jaw dropped open, and he stared at me in disbelief. I held his gaze, waiting for his response, although deep down, I was really scared I could be chained to the machine around me as a result of what I had just said. When he finally found the courage to speak, he uttered, “My doctor, I am sincerely sorry for delaying you. You should have told me as soon as I called you, and I would have passed you on”. He then proceeded to tell me stories about his brother, who graduated from COMUI and was now saving lives. He then wished me a safe journey and told me to go.

In conclusion, as I go through medical school, I hear many consultants make statements such as, “You medical students are at the bottom of the food chain in the medical profession”, and that, in a way, crushes our egos sometimes. However, it feels good to know that that title commands some measure of respect outside the clinics, wards, and lecture rooms.

P. S.

Click here to watch our YouTube video on why you shouldn’t study Medicine at the University.

Click here to watch our interview with Dr Rebecca Okolo (HealthThenMore) on studying in the UK, the US, and Canada.

Pendical Admin

PENDICAL an educational weblog creates a platform for medical personnel/practitioners including medical students to share inspiring stories, lifestyles, and resources for medical personnel/practitioners or anyone aspiring to be a physician thereby encouraging and promoting diversity in lifestyle, mindset, thoughts and experience among medical personnel and medical students. PENDICAL started out, like many realities, a dream. It is a weblog whose contributors are medical personnel. In a most profound way, medicine and health meet art in the realm of writing. What we seek to achieve cannot be summarized into bullet points, but if through the pieces herein someone’s path is more illuminated or another is inspired to reach beyond its ‘limits’, if doubts are cleared from this mind or the spirit of another are lifted after a long day, PENDICAL would have served well in the line of duty. Our core values are creativity, excellence, truth, and passion.

Related Articles

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Close