A Day In My Life As A Doctor – My Paediatrics Posting Experience.

Last post in my housemanship in Nigeria chronicles! Phew.

Guys, I made it through my twelve months a slave in one piece! Ain’t God good? Looking back at my whole housemanship experience now further reiterates the fact that you can pull through whatever and no matter how long the night lasts, morning will always come.

This post is actually super late and I apologize for that. I rounded up my medical housemanship in LUTH a few months ago and this should have gone up a long time ago but I kept pushing it down the ladder in my list of things to blog about but no more!

Unfortunately, I didn’t take lots of pictures during my Paediatrics posting because it was a super busy posting but I put together a video so I hope that compensates for it!

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P.S: IN CASE YOU’RE NEW AROUND HERE AND WONDERING WHAT THIS HOUSEMANSHIP OF A THING IS, I’VE EXPLAINED ALL THAT HERE, TALKED ABOUT GRADUATING MED SCHOOL HERE, MY STRUGGLE TO GET A HOUSEMANSHIP PLACEMENT HEREAND ALSO BLOGGED ABOUT MY FIRST THREE MONTHS OF MY HOUSEMANSHIP IN NIGERIA (LUTH) EXPERIENCE HERE.

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If you’ve been following my “housemanship chronicles”, you’ll already know that Paediatrics ( the branch of medicine that deals with children- eighteen years and below) was my last posting. I blogged about my OnG posting here, my Medicine posting here and Surgery posting here.

Paediatrics was my worst posting (followed closely by medicine) in Med school so I definitely wasn’t looking forward to working in this department. Dealing with little kids can be a bit stressful. Imagine having to pin down a 3-year-old child to obtain a blood sample and having to spend close to an hour because the child won’t stop fighting you (I got peed on once lol!) There’s also the added responsibility of dealing with the mothers too who can be a bit annoying (albeit understandably sometimes)

Thankfully though, it was my last posting so I had the chance to acclimatize to this being a doctor thing before being thrown into the Paediatrics department.

In Paediatrics, we have to also go through three units with the neonatal unit and the children emergency unit being compulsory. My first unit was hematology and oncology and it turned out to be quite emotional for me because we dealt with majorly sickle cell patients and kids with cancer. It was really heartbreaking watching them suffer, knowing that not all will end up going home totally healthy.

I had the best consultant (in my history of consultants) in this unit so it was actually a fun experience until it wasn’t (at some point our regs were switched and let’s just say the new ones were out for blood).

Paediatrics is also different from adult medicine because unlike adult medicine where most of the drugs can be given twice daily, in Paeds most of the drugs aren’t so we had to constantly go round every other hour giving drugs.

My next posting was the children emergency posting which to date remains my favorite because we got to work shifts, the environment was a fast-paced one and doctors didn’t have to give the intravenous medications (best!). We worked two mornings, two afternoons, two nights and then two off days.

Although, if I’m being honest the shifts were more of a scam because handing over (to the people in the next shift) was never really as swift as it could have been and we still ended up working overtime.

My last unit was the one I dreaded and feared the most because my recollection of the posting from medical school wasn’t exactly the best.

The consultants were all women and as no-nonsense as they come. Constantly out for blood and everyone seemed scared of rounds with them (as evidenced by the hushed tones, rigid faces and whispers of “they are here”).
I remember standing for hours and having them fire questions one after the other and proceed to embarrass you if you didn’t know the answer. The good old days lol

I actually cried the day I was told I was to resume in the out-born neonatology unit (later realized it might have also been hormones from that time of the month too) but I was seriously so heartbroken. Haha

Guess what though? It turned out to not be as bad as I expected. The consultants seemed to have calmed down between the period I graduated from med school and my housemanship. It was also the only posting where the consultant actually commended me and said: “You’ve done well”.

Most of the cases we saw in the neonatology unit (for newborns – 28 days of life, although we still took in babies as old as a few months) were premature babies and babies with jaundice. I actually enjoyed being surrounded by babies, some of which I grew really attached to.

I recorded a video of “a day in my life” during my neonatology posting. I didn’t think much of it back then because I knew nothing about editing videos and figured I’ll end up discarding the videos but I actually did a pretty decent job if I do say so myself.

Please kindly watch this video of life as a junior doctor/ housemanship in Nigeria, share, leave a comment and subscribe to my channel!

 If you’re a doctor (medical) currently doing your housemanship in Nigeria or already done, I’ll love to know what hospital you’re working in and also read about your own experience so please leave me a comment. If you’re a med student too, holla in the comments!

And let’s connect!

P.P.S – Check out other posts in my med diary here. And a breakdown of some of the med life terminologies like senior registrar here