Rigours of a 100L Medical Student

Okolo Shadrach Arinze
For TSW

That fateful evening, my phone beeped. Lo and behold, it was a text message from a friend. It read, “Post UTME result is out. I just checked mine”. I decided to check mine too. My hands were shaking with tremor as I managed to type my JAMB registration number on the school portal. With screams of YES! YES! YES!, I was asked to stand up for disrupting the ongoing choir rehearsal as I totally forgot I was in church. My happiness could not be described in words.

Not until I got home did I realise my joy would be cut short. My family wasn’t aware I took JAMB, and I never wanted to tell them since I had already done Year 1 twice, switching from Anatomy to Physiotherapy. They cannot stand the financial burden of paying my 100L school fees for the third time, I thought to myself. I spent the whole night thinking, “I will finally get my dream course but how do I raise the money for my school fees?” It was obvious I needed someone to talk to.

Few days later, I opened up to my elder sister who was also expecting her admission soon (she hadn’t been allowed to sit for JAMB the past three years, just after secondary school, because my parents wanted me to go a bit farther in the university before she applied). But, at that moment, it seemed she was going to get admitted into the university, and I was also going to get admitted to study my dream course. Was she supposed to sacrifice another year to see me achieve my dream? Was she supposed to tell me to forget about Medicine and continue with Physiotherapy? Were we supposed to tell our parents and allow them make the decision for us? These and many more questions ran through my mind.

I was sure school would resume in less than two months and I didn’t even have any savings. Reality dawned on me. I applied for work in several places, including hotels, bars, eateries, supermarkets and even carwashes. I couldn’t pass most interviews as I didn’t have the paper qualification. Luckily, I got a job to teach in one of these private secondary schools and another job as a private tutor for a church member preparing for WASSCE and UTME. I was able to raise money for my acceptance fee after the first month. School started and lectures kicked off but I didn’t go. I stayed back at home teaching, since I had to complete the term which was to end by the last month of the year (December). Meanwhile, lectures started by first week of November.

By January the next year, I resumed. Inasmuch as the challenges were pressing, my joy knew no bounds, especially when someone would ask me what Department I was in and I would proudly reply, “Medicine and Surgery”. I literally walked like I owned the whole school. My first night in school was like every other night. The rule in the department is that no student is allowed to fail any 100L course, otherwise they would be asked to withdraw and not even repeat the year. That was a way of weeding students after admitting so many. It scared me but I remained optimistic.

With the little money I had worked for, added to the one my parents gave me for old students’ school fees, it still wasn’t enough to settle all my fees as a 100-level medical student. I started a catering work which I did during the weekends. I had to leave school on Friday and return on Sunday evening, not minding that we had our Chemistry practicals on Fridays. I took the risk of giving someone my practical manual to help me fill and submit, just to have any score and be eligible for the exam. Combining the weekend work and lecture wasn’t an easy one, but I always felt I wasn’t new to the university system. I was absent from most lectures and attended mostly Physics and Biology practicals because the manuals needed to be scored and signed immediately.

There was this thing with medical students in my school: they were always together. This made it very easy for me to make new friends. Students from other departments disliked us as they always said, “Ndi Medicine a di too proud” (translated to ‘these Medicine people are too proud’). Everyone appeared serious. Everyone seemed to be a “jacker”. No one knew my story, and I wasn’t ready to tell either.

“You will be going for your industrial training (IT) soon”, most of my relatives and friends from home would say when they called me. Little did they know that the boy had just started 100L afresh.

All exams went fine until we wrote the almighty Statistics. Statistics and Math102 were the two dreaded courses that some medical students failed in my school. The pattern in which the questions were structured was something else. The timing too was on another level. I put in my best for Statistics and never missed a lecture as they were just for medical students and the lecturers took a roll call at the end of every class. During the exam, which appeared to be subjective (more of ‘fill in the blank spaces’), I was surprised at how the lecturer allowed us sit in clusters of four and also allowed us use any type of calculator. I knew he was up to something.

I didn’t read the instructions very well anyway. I answered the first question on calculation of mean and found out my answer was different from that of my neighbour’s. Nevertheless, I decided to face my work since I thought I couldn’t fail calculation of mean. The exam ended, we submitted and came out. Everyone was saying, “The instruction said to leave all answers in three decimal places”. I never saw that; I didn’t even leave any answer in 3dp. As the lecturer was leaving with the scripts, he said to us, “It was paper typed. No two persons on the same seat had the same questions, and I hope you all approximated your answers to 3dp?” At that moment, I started crying and saying to myself, “Is this how I failed out?”

I managed to write the remaining seven exams. On the last day of our exams, as was routinely done, senior colleagues were around to advise us on books to buy, departmental dressing code and lodges in the new campus we were to move to after the holidays. I didn’t even stay back to listen as I wasn’t sure I would still be studying Medicine. I had failed myself. I had failed my family. These thoughts kept haunting me. I was emotionally and psychologically traumatized as I kept on having series of dreams where it all happened. While my mates were paying for hostels and lodges, buying textbooks and getting their uniforms, I was stuck between choosing the department that would accept me if I should fail out and writing JAMB again. N/B. Up till then, only my sister knew I was studying Medicine as I told her to keep it to herself.

Finally, the statistics result came out and I passed. It was a new life all over; I knew joy again. It was barely two weeks to resumption, and I had not spoken about my accommodation, textbooks or uniforms with my parents. It was then I told them I was studying Medicine and Surgery without letting them know all I went through. My sister is now a graduate of English and Communication studies and is currently doing her NYSC. I am in 500level and I could have said “a doctor by next year”, but with the current pandemic, it’s “a doctor in God knows when”.

My advice to 100L medical students: Irrespective of how you came into medical school, you can survive once you are disciplined.- Forget the past glory you had in secondary school; it’s a different ball game now — everyone in medical school is intelligent. Always be smart and disciplined in whatever you do. The end is always beautiful; work towards it!