Med Diary || My Surgery Posting Experience.

And it’s another housemanship in Nigeria Post! This time though, I’m kicking it off on a happy note – Super excited because I start my last posting in this my housemanship journey tomorrow (started writing this on the 21st, so I’m already a few days into my last posting now)! Whoop whoop!

How times flies right? To think that just the other day I couldn’t seem to get a placement for my housemanship and now I’ll be rounding up in a bit! Ahh, mad ting.

I really cannot wait to be done with this phase of my life and just move on to other less depressing things but that’s not really what this post is about. As is the norm, I’ll be sharing another page from my “housemanship in Nigeria” chronicles and talking all about my surgery posting experience.

Psst: 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 here and also blogged about my first three months of my housemanship in Nigeria (LUTH) experience here.

Let’s dig in.

I started Surgery really hopeful and all, because according to my roommate – surgery people live life on the fast lane and hardly spend time on ward rounds and documenting plenty plenty things lol

In surgery, we have to rotate through three units, spending one month in each of them. My First posting was a relatively lightweight unit – Urology.

Urology focuses on surgical diseases of the male and female urinary tract system and the male reproductive organs, so we get to see a lot of Prostate cancer, BPH(Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia), Renal cancer, male infertility, urinary retention and the likes.

Ever Wondered What The Life Of A Medical Doctor In Nigeria Is Like? You Should Check This Out Click To Tweet

I really don’t have much to say about my time in Urology because it was pretty much uneventful and such a bore, but I can’t complain because I enjoyed it! I had lots of free time (compared to my previous postings so far) as the workload wasn’t so hectic and emergency cases that would have your phone ringing at odd hours of the night didn’t come in a lot (unlike my Endocrinology posting days).

My regs were also all cool, (except for this one reg that tried to pick a case with me but as my God would have it, I was leaving the unit few days after he joined us) and I worked with some cool house officers too (Shout out to Ayuba, Fadeelah and Lawal)

The only thing I didn’t like about Urology was having to change urethral catheters all day long in the clinic, which was like the only job for we house officers on clinic days but it definitely helped hone my catheterization skills.

My next unit was pediatric surgery and this was where shit got real! I specifically prayed not to get posted here and kept “God forbidding” It but guess who still got that dreaded text that said, “Go to PSU”? Me.

Right from my first day there, I started counting down to the end. There were just so many unnecessary rules in the unit and so much work that it left me with little time to fix other aspects of my life which was quite depressing.

Related: On Burn out, Life lately and taking a blog break

It didn’t help that my patients were going to be tiny babies and little kids – you don’t know struggle until you’ve spent hours battling to site a line or take a sample from a baby. lol. Mastering Adult lines took a while for me, so I was scared about having to deal with children and their tiny veins/impossible to see veins but who fear epp?

I’m currently in my pediatrics posting which means, even more babies and even more lines to face.

Pediatric surgery is the branch of surgery that deals with surgical cases in children (teenagers and adolescents included). Most of the cases we saw were neonates(babies below 28days old) with congenital disorders like gastroschisis, Omphalocele, Hirschsprung disease, intestinal obstruction, and hypospadias. there were a whole lot of appendicitis cases too.

I’m honestly not sure why I’m listing out cases for you guys because you probably won’t get it. But if you have some spare time it wouldn’t hurt to just check them out and be informed. Shit is real outchea!

Working in the medical field opens you up to so much!! If I wasn’t a doctor, I probably wouldn’t realize how hard it is for some people to conceive because that’s not what I see around me normally or just how many congenital deformities/malformations there are out there because again, the people around me never had such issues. Good health is honestly everything and I’m thankful for it every day.

My housemanship period has definitely been an eye-opening one.

My last surgery posting was General surgery, here we deal with surgical cases in adults focusing majorly on the abdomen, and often the thyroid gland and the breast. Most of the cases we saw were gunshot/stab injuries to the abdomen, appendicitis, breast cancer, gallbladder cancer. See ehn, cancer na bastard (excuse my choice of words).

This was another super busy unit! And the funny thing is that other units used to regard us as a chilling unit. I once spent a full day at work + night and half of the next day in the theatre – I slept on an iron chair in the changing room at the theatre. Too real!

Although the workload was much, It was refreshing working with adults again and bonding with some of the patients and my colleagues. The working environment here was also pretty relaxed as none of my superiors were malignant. Thank God!

You all already know that I had a short leave after my general surgery posting, took a trip to Ghana and now back at work again. I started Paediatrics a few days ago and so far, so good. I’m just taking every day at a time and counting down till the end of it all.

That said, I’m really praying for our health care system in Nigeria.

Everything is in ruins and almost every doctor is running out of Nigeria because of the harsh working conditions. Not only do we have long working hours (Imagine being expected to work 24hrs at a stretch, sometimes extending to 48 & even 72hrs and still function properly attending to patients), there’s almost always nothing available to work with – continuation sheets to write on, sample bottles etc, the working environment is harsh and Nigerians (yes, yall!) have zero regards for the work doctors are putting in everyday to help people get better.

Hopefully one day it will get better but I don’t plan to stay around that long enough to find out. Check out lifewithtwotees for another perspective (the real behind the scenes that I haven’t got the guts to write about till I finish) of this housemanship in Nigeria struggle

Once again, please let me know if there are any extra details you’ll like to know for my subsequent house job Chronicle posts!

 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