It’s been a long time since I last posted here – 5 months to be exact. A lot has happened in the meantime such as the following:
- I’ve started to enjoy medicine again.
- I got a cozy room.
- I was admitted in a hospital for three weeks – trust me, you don’t wanna know why.
I am sorry for keeping you all in the dark for so long. I can blame it on writer’s block but that would not come close to sufficient reasons for my absence. Let’s begin today’s article.
I remember when I was a young boy.
I had limitless dreams. Being a doctor was my foremost dream. As time elapsed, my dreams took on form – that of a trinity.
The trinity consists of medicine, teaching (I say teaching and not lecturing because I consider the latter a waste of time) and the art of motivating people.
MEDICINE
Practicing medicine has been my goal since I was a child. My father is a Doctor and my mother, a nurse.
DADDY
A medical doctor who has had a private practice for about two decades now – that’s my daddy. He is a disciplinarian with a high level of maturity and organization. He has served as my role model for a long while. In my eyes, he was the best doctor in the world when I was a child. He still is – in his own way.
MUMMY
A midwife with diplomas in Orthopaedic, Accident and Emergency nursing. A kind-hearted and loving mother, she has, in conjunction with my dad, unconsciously motivated me to study medicine.
With my parents in the medical field, it was pretty easy for me to choose medicine. One of my reasons was that I felt I would get a lot of directed support from them. Although, my experiences have taught me that I expected too much from them, my parents have helped me a great deal.
Medicine is also a highly rated course. You’re awarded a high level of respect as a medical student. People expect you to be responsible – and most medical students are. I love medicine.
TEACHING
Teacher and student in a classroom at school.
When I was much younger, my siblings and I acted plays with whatever we had in the house when we were alone. Curtains, dolls, torches, radios, wardrobes, just anything.
Sometimes, we pretended that the curtains and dolls were students. We took turns to teach the ‘students’ and we flogged and scolded the disobedient and lazy ones – just as was done in class proper. That was the beginning of my love for teaching.
Throughout my sojourn in primary and secondary schools, I observed the problems of conventional teaching. Some of them are:
- Teachers used fear to motivate students. This, they did by flogging and scolding students. I feel there are better ways to do so.
- Teachers were too slow and lecturers were too fast. I learned the latter in the university.
- Most teachers were esoteric.
I didn’t know then that I would want to solve them later. I just identified the problems.
I had to spend an extra year after secondary school because my initial UTME score was below the cut off for consideration to be invited by the University of Ibadan, Nigeria for their post UTME.
I spent a few months reading on my own before I started attending tutorials. It was during these tutorials that I developed the flair for teaching. I wasn’t outspoken. I wasn’t an extrovert. But, teaching gave me an avenue to reach out to people in need. I still like teaching today.
MOTIVATION
For the first 10 years of my life, my parents were always there to motivate me to do things I didn’t want to do but had to.
When I was 10, I entered into a boarding secondary school. The Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Abeokuta, Ogun State, was no joke.
I was faced with independence for the first time. In a school with poor facilities, bullying and brutality, ever-present tension, peer pressure and a host of others, I was alone.
I remember crying every visiting day during my first three years there that my parents should take me away from that school. I ended up adapting.
There, for the first time in my life, was an average student. I, that was normally always coming tops.
I learned to tap motivation from friends. However, that didn’t work out well for me. This was so because as I tapped motivation from people, they would demand something in return. Sometimes, it was money and provision. Other times, it would require some of my intellectual ‘services’.
At age 14, I started to seek self-motivation as an alternative. I was tired of being used. I was tired of copying others. I wanted to be myself!
It worked. I improved at academic work. I even represented my school in quiz competitions and spelling bees. I was cool until I entered university. I guess then I needed to do what I did when I started secondary school – start with external motivation. Instead, I motivated myself until I was exhausted and drained. I broke down.
It took a whole year and a half for me to gain ground. And I’m still recovering as I speak.
My point is, I know the value of motivation now.
My ultimate dream is to convert medicine, teaching and motivation into one grand job. I have no need to think about money. It will come in excess once I can achieve this. I just need to know how to teach medicine and motivate my students at the same time.
Thank you for reading. Adios!
Ingenuity 