INTRODUCTIONS AND PRELUDES
Hi.
I have been thinking of opening a diary on nairaland for some time now.
I decided that I will open it once my result were out.
2 hours ago I was told that I satisfied my examiners and therefore I am a bonafide final year student🎉.
This is the happiest I have been in medical school. I am hyped for final year.
For all my colleagues that yet to write part 3 pro exams, it's going to be the hardest you have ever written.😂 Lemme just tell you now.
I am going talk more about the last session because it wasn't easy sometimes I didn't even see headway, Plus me that practicals and clinicals have always given me anxiety I wondered how I will thrive. But I give God all the glory since I have crossed that bridge.
So a little a about myself. I am a medical student in southern university. I am an only boy with plenty sisters. I also consider myself an introvert. I am a fan of Messi, wizkid and Liverpool. Nothing else I am well known in my class but not in school. Yeah even I find that weird. I am also an avid reader of tonye001 diaries. I am even rereading the medical student diary now.
I have a person like him in my class and she was called for distinction sef although she was not given. Imagine a nurse running permanent night shift, with 3 children and a husband being called for distinction... Nobody go tell you say e dey possible na you go know say you gats sit up.
So what will this diary be about exactly?
I dunno but I will document any interesting medical cases that I am involved in, of course it will be very anonymous.
I may also run commentary on things I find interesting.
Anyway, welcome to my diary just as I welcome my self into final year, house officer's money don dey smell. 😂😂

Reading: The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost
Hi again,
Mehn it feels good to wake up as a final year student mehn.
A vision that started 7 years ago in my father's living room is closer than ever to being fulfilled.
I didn't always want to be a doctor, like most boys engineering seemed like the better option as a science student. But I have always seen myself as somebody who can tell myself the truth, so I told myself, if you are struggling like this with secondary school maths not to talk of further maths, what will happen when you are doing this everyday for 5 years? My technical drawing then was average and I didn't have the patience to do it perfectly. So that was how I had a talk with my TD and further maths teacher, who was disappointed but understood. My biology teacher has been asking for a while to consider medicine, but that was my sister's goal and I didn't think we needed more than one medic in the house that time anyway it was my dad who decided that I was going to try medicine after I told him I didn't know what else to do. I just accepted meekly,because I did not have any other answer to give him. I was so lost.

Well, I started preparing for my waec and jamb exams, cbt was just in its early stages that time and questions were oftentimes repeated. I secured past questions and was just casually studying. Biology was my strong point because there was no calculations I was reading chemistry to please my chemistry teacher and vice principal, a particular class mate who was going for engineering was reading physics and then teaching us his fellow classmates. I thought I knew English.

When the result came in I was the highest in my class for jamb. Scoring highest in biology and loowest in English. In the order that I had studied them . I was quite surprised too as there were people that studied more than me. But I learned a lesson there, if you put in the work, you are only more likely to the reward, not guaranteed. It important to be kind, don't judge a person by the result, efforts put in may not be reflected in the results.
When I got home the evening of the exams day, the result had already been sent to my father. He called me into the sitting room and told me something that I still hold dear till today. "You are the son of your father."
It sounds so generic right? But the way he said it, the way he has never doubted my academic ability since then makes it top 10 memory that I hold on to.
After I surmounted waec with a c6 in maths. ( Till tomorrow I hate mathematics, it makes my blood boil ). The path was clear and again luckily for me the cutoff was placed right on the score that I had had in jamb.
I had gotten admission and was a medical student...!!!
I was consumed by both anxiety and the joy of campus life.
The journey had just begun and the goal was to pass all the courses and go to year 2.
I got to work...

I decided to rename my diary. First name was just so devoid of creativity. This one sef is not unique but half bread is better than none.
First name was "Final year medical student confirmed" 😩

NEW START, NEW ANXIETIES
My life at this Point has direction and some recognizable weight that wasn't there in my first year of school.
I was just there in my class. A loner. Then I linked up with 2 other loners and we became a group of loners😂😂
Our goal in life was to make inside jokes, read book and bond over our collective anxiety of dropping from med school just by failing one course. If we knew that the anxiety will follow us till 5th year maybe we would have been more gentle with ourself.
The highlight of the first year was math111.
Remember when I said I hated maths, I despise it. Unfortunately I didn't take it seriously I just thought I will read my way of it as usual. While others were paying money to attend tutorial classes I was going home to sleep.
Test came and I had a decent 20 out of 30. I thought I have arrived..
It was during the exams that my literal nightmare started.
I entered exams hall to see 24 McQ mathematics question waiting for me. I began to attempt them.
I would finish answering only to discover there was no option even closely related to my answer. Wahala.
I think the end it was 7 questions that I was satisfied with my answer. I did the maths this would not even give me d.
I became uncomfortable, I was breathing heavily, turning my neck left and right.
Unfortunately the people around were also asking around and since it wasn't just medical students (I can't remember the other departments) you couldn't really trust the quality of what you were receiving. ( No offense but when your career depends on passing an exams I am more likely to believe that your answers are well thought out)
I left hall that day believing I needed a miracle.
I left for holidays and my folks couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, I am usually quiet but it was worse this Time.
I had series of night mares, one I still can't forget happened in the afternoon when I was taking a nap.
My lecturer drove his car all the way to my house knocked on the door, and entered, he took out his marker wrote my full name and registration and wrote F. I woke up, sweat all over my body, pains and my head throbbing. I knelt down and prayed seriously. It wasn't funny again.
Told God to helpe pass, and to help me relax and enjoy my holiday. I feared I was going crazy. Math111 occupied my waking and sleeping hours.
2nd semester began and I was preoccupied with lectures, I started attending tutorial classes in math112.
.all other results came out all As with one or two Bs. We lost two persons who failed practicals ( time is not there for me to tell you how my logbook was used as an examples of a failing medical student 😂😂😂mehn I don suffer). Two weeks to our exams, the first semester result came out I had 33 over 70. Thanks to my CAT of 20 I had 53 a C. I had passed. 5 persons joined the list of people who had dropped. You remember that married woman that I said almost got distinction, she almost dropped she had 45 on the dot. Imagine that.

It really put it into perspective, right?
Our best graduating student came from supplementary list.
Our second best too..
This woman almost dropped out in year 1 and now she was called for distinction.
Life happens to people and we may not know the full fact of the matter.
I remember once my best friend rebuked me seriously when I started complaining that a certain man begging was not allowing me to concentrate on my reading.
The man said he had cirrhosis, which we were just a few weeks back that it is commonly caused by alcohol abuse.
Other caused were given but this was given as acommon one.
So as I was complaining I made the comment that after all, when he was drinking and enjoying he did not inform us. My friend was taken aback but that didn't stop him from saying his mind.
He completely finished me, askimg me if i was the one who wrote the medical report that showed it wss alcohol that caused the cirrhosis.
What if it hepatitis? What if it was a genetic disease?

All this experience has taught me humility, and to resist the urge to judge
that my self worth is better off tied to effort than to reward or results.
That time and unforseen circumstances overtake us all.
As for math112, I had an A. Attend your tutorial, guys. I was no longer a premed a preclinical student. Started buying big textbooks because that was what we thought medical school was.
The fun part had just started .

Why is my diary in the health section?? Mods!!
Sissy3 Dominique

YOUNG, SMART, ENERGETIC AND BROKE?
Anyway I thoroughly enjoyed preclinicals.
Keith Moore was the goat. I use to walk about acutely aware of all the muscle groups in my body and which one I was moving at the moment. I know the placement of all the organs in the body and even though I may not know their blood supply and innervations directly I know the major suppliers to that region and may even guess their direct supply in three trials.
Sembuligam for physiology til I die, guyton can gedifok. In physiology as a medical student all you need was to know the basics and principles and sembuligam gives you that, but my lecturers would swear guyton that is bulky is what you need instead.
I never knew the art of biochemistry until when I was reading for my first mb.
Mehn if you are a medical student reading this, make Indian tutors on YouTube your companion. go to your library and carry those big textbooks, the bigger the better and read, cram and understand biochemistry. That's when you will see the beauty of biochemistry.
Just as you map the human body with bones, muscles, blood supply and Innervations with Human Anatomy
You map it with pathways And cycles with biochemistry
Then physiology will blend the two together
.this is the class where you will enjoy reading textbooks, other classes you will be struggling to finish the main points in slides to read text book will Taya you
And lemme not even start on the first mb. Mehn it was a pure mix of excitement and anxiety, too much adrenaline.
Since I didn't stay in the hostel I use to come to school at 8am and go by 6pm with one hour break to eat in cafeteria.
I had colleagues who slept only 4 hours in 24hrs and the rest was just to read!
We were young energetic and hopeful. We were true believers.
Everyone knew in our school that once you pass the first MB, you will become a doctor, only problem would be question of when? Because they won't drop you. It only you that may get tired and drop out by yourself.
I passed sha and we were transferred to teaching hospital as clinical students.
It was then that I started seeing medicine as more than something I did because of my father.
I was quite happy that my dad saw me fit to pursue this field although I was never a studious student in secondary school.
I have since upped my studying skills
The vector of my life was shaping up. When will the magnitude come?