Saturday the 30th of June, 2018. The day I swore my oath into the noble profession of medical practice.
It’s been a long time coming. I’m going to share a tip of the iceberg that is my medical school story. I came to Nigeria in September 2012, freshly transferred from my previous university, the University of East London, where I had worked myself extra hard to get a first class grade in my first year of Biomedical Sciences for my transcript, and I had finally gotten the admission into Medicine and Surgery – the course of my dreams! I was admitted in 4 European countries and Afe Babalola University, but the European countries had a condition: learn the language for a year before proceeding to studying medicine – at the time I couldn’t even say good morning in my native language! So I decided I was going to go to Nigeria and learn my culture alongside my medical education.
ABUAD was great. Met people I still cherish till now. Got half my medical education and made a bit of money along the way, as I discovered my flair for event planning. Life was good.
Until 2015. My life crumbled. My dreams of finishing medical school were all but snuffed out. I was called practically every name under the sun. Accused of sleeping with a man old enough for my grandfather to prostrate for. My mother was called a mother of a prostitute. Amidst many other vile, horrible, untrue allegations. People were angry and my family & I was the target of their misplaced vexations.
I was depressed. I very seriously considered slitting my wrists and putting an end to it all because that is how terrible I felt about life. I was blamed for a person’s inability to properly grieve the loss of a parent; and the many other horrible accusations weighed me down each day. I practically just wandered through days wallowing in sadness, and it went from bad to worse for over 6 months. Only thing that kept me from committing suicide was knowing it’s a sin – I honestly thought my family would be better off without me because I was a source of bad news for such a long time.
Finally a miracle happened and life seemed to start looking up, gradually. Awards piled in from seemingly nowhere, my blog’s followership blossomed and I got a position with the IFMSA. It wasn’t all roses and chocolate, as I had to work twice as hard as those unaffected by the trauma for quite a while, but I guess it made me stronger and more sure of my medical knowledge in the long run.
2017 rolled in and things started to really “glow up”. It was like God was saying “it’s time I rewarded you for holding onto me through it all” – because quite frankly He was the only hope I had that I’d survive it all. “He will never leave me nor forsake me” were my bywords, and 2017 He showed up! Got more international positions, represented Nigeria at the United Nations Youth Assembly, got flown to Abuja twice for different trainings, School was settling into a normal routine…things were alright.
I was thinking “okay God you’ve done me well, let’s just continue like this for next year and let me graduate in Peace” but He had other plans lol. I was flown off to Ethiopia for the Pre-Africa Union Summit in January – which was coincidentally on my birthday! Continued doing medical outreaches and made connections which then pulled through during my graduating class week, then immediately after I got the great news that I had passed my finals, I was off on a world tour haha. Lagos today, London tomorrow, Geneva the next day! The World Health Assembly was all I dreamed it to be and more – such a life-changing experience. Shortly after that I was off to Zimbabwe where I’d been invited to train medical students on Human Rights and Peace topics.
I get back to school the week of my induction and a couple days later, I’m swearing the hippocratic Oath, and my parents, the bane of much ridicule and insults in 2015, were bestowed with the honor of giving the Parent’s speech at the Induction and presenting an amazing handmade Art piece (by @artisticbarrister on Instagram) to the Vice Chancellor, Professor Matthews-Ojo.
Tell me: is God not a good God?
He LITERALLY turned my story around.
And He can and will do the same for you – TRUST HIM!!
Couple more candid photos for good measure:
Till next time,
Dr. ETP xo
