You don’t like crowded places…
And right in front of the notice board there is a
massive crowd of third year students peeking over each other’s heads and under
each other’s arm in search of their exam scores. What weighs you down at this site
is not your claustrophobia or anxiety over your score, it’s something else and
you can’t describe it. A very familiar face jostles its way out of the crowd;
it’s your friend Oyiza. You say hello and hug her but her body is stiff and her
reply is barely a mumble. She slips out of your awkward embrace and hurries
away. Something is wrong.
Your mind flashes back to the middle of the year.
You are standing at the washbasin in front of the mirror admiring the dark
circles around your eyes. Mirror time is your personal quiz time and the
questions are always the same;
‘Contestant number one and only, why are you here? ‘Contestant
number one and only, why don’t you quit?’
The answer to the first is easy, your family is the
reason you are studying medicine. God allegedly told your father He wants you
to be a Doctor and work as a specialist for a hospital. You also suspect that
God then went on to explain that the hospital is to be that of your miser uncle
who still gives you five naira biscuits when he visits. You are not surprised
God said all that to your father though, your mother has always been the oracle
of God.
The answer to the second however is very difficult.
You have broken down under the strain of school work a number of times but you
keep on fighting. Your social life has atrophied to a few reoccurring whatsApp
conversations and God is a name you mumble before shading true or false. Your
friends are your enemies because everybody tells you the class number
thoroughly exceeds the graduation quota of the department.
You are depressed and lonely, but you have no time
to feel lonely because you are behind the syllabus. Every molecule in your
being and everybody cell seems to only exist for one purpose; the in-course
assessment.
Every hour before the in –course is a blitz of coffee cups, soda
bottles, energy drinks, and handouts, as day melts into night and back into day
and meets you with your head on your laptop and drool on the back of your hand.
What is most silly is the way you console yourself the night after the
in-course with a movie that you never finish because you are too tired to stay
awake. You would finish the movie the next day but you never do because terror
seizes your heart and every breath suddenly is for the next in-course. What an
unusual way to live.
Sometimes you wish there was someone to talk to; a
senior colleague or a Doctor who would not only admit they went through the
same but also be sensitive to the mental and emotional fatigue you feel.
Unfortunately most of them also teach the ‘hidden
curriculum’ which says medical students are invincible, rugged individuals that
can weather the worst physical and emotional conditions and only really need
help if it is in form of two wide bore cannulae on a resuscitation bed at
Emergency room. You wish someone would ask, ‘’how are you doing’’ and actually
mean your mental health.
Back to the present, the crowd has thinned down to a
few people. You go to the board and check Oyiza’s score. She has failed some
courses and will have to repeat the same frustrating cycle for the next six
weeks in preparation for the resit exam. A few lines below your grades are
almost the same. A bitter smile plays across your lips.
On your way back you finally find the words to
describe the feeling that has been plaguing you, it is a profound absence of
joy. Thinking of the next six weeks makes you shudder. Deep inside you wonder
if you can go through it without cracking.
The medical student in you immediately
starts to calculate the effort needed to achieve success. A tiny voice
somewhere behind asks what will happen if you fail. An unspeakable deed crosses
your mind; you shudder again and push it away. You really wish there was
someone you could talk to. Someone who would ask, ‘how are you doing?’’ and
actually mean your mental health.
By
Amaechina Ikechukwu.
College
of Medicine of the University of Lagos (CMUL), Idi-Araba, Nigeria.
This
Article was culled from the Association of Medical Students University of Lagos
(AMSUL) Digest 2015 Edition.
0 comments:
Post a Comment