Internship-reminiscences..

A GPA of three in his FQE had left Mose feeling quite good with himself. As he embarked on the 'arduous and treacherous' one year of internship, nothing could dampen his spirits. He would be paid a 'small' subsistence allowance by the hospital. He was also upbeat because after the grueling coursework he would not in a very long time hit the job market. Together with three of his classmates, they had been required to open bank accounts. This was a requirement he had promptly complied with and submitted the details at the accounts office. Maybe he had only imagined it but the month had never seemed to labor in it's travel as it did that particular one! It felt good to operate a bank account, he regarded this the first real and palpable sign that his life was just officially setting off. He knew many of his colleagues who struggled to find an internship place and even then got paid nothing at all, in effect they had to devise and resort to unscrupulous means of making money at which some became so good at (but what choice had they really) So the other thing he had done was to consider himself lucky.

The arduous and treacherous year..
That's what internship was exactly. It was the limbo of medicine, suspending one between the dying life of studentship and the resurrection as a qualified clinician or doctor. Most consultants who had to supervise you started off from where they had left you at college or during the FQE practicals. Soon you would be a product on the job market shelves or you would yourself be a shopper on this very market so you had to have a certain premium or worth to you.. There was no or little inhibition in their determination to really refine you the product or shopper. There were no hard feelings, that's just how it was even though it's true some were unrestrained in their meanness.He had been all psyched for this though.

He had to read still, but not for examinations or assessments or assignments but for the real thing. In most instances it would be him who would make the first contact with the patient and what went on during this encounter would be keenly scrutinized by his superiors.
To determine who rotated where and when a raffle had been done. He was lucky to start with the medical rotation which was regarded the easiest of all. He would use this to prepare for the other heavier rotations.
The consultants. Them that loomed menacingly over the intern's head. There was Dr. Maloba the head honcho. A surgeon by specialization, his reign at the helm of the hospital was not a particularly rosy one. He was known to take some small matters personally and this usually isolated him for all sorts of vitriol, contempt, unnecessary confrontations and eventual frustrations. He had only one or two known friends in the whole hospital. It may be observed that if he had come in a competent and well meaning doctor, he left a bruised and dejected man.
His ward rounds were always anticipated with apprehension for the smallest of matters would upset him and then every one would have a fair share of his wrath. Many were the times he sent away not only the interns but even qualified nurses and junior doctors to the library to go and read up then report back to him equipped with information. A thin streak of melancholic humor overflowed in him. A man had to have his flaws yes but Mose believed his brought him more misery. He could not change. He was an outstanding surgeon but the intern's worst nightmare.
Dr Akhungu was the hospital physician with a phlegmatic disposition. He smoked hard and drank harder. It was rumored he was involved in a very queer romantic relationship with two nurses who were the best of friends. Otherwise he led a distinctly solitary life, his marriage said to have been one sad tale. He was a hopeless hypertensive and asthmatic; he had an evident reminder by way of a limp from a stoke he had suffered some years back. It was said it's this that had brought him problems in his marriage and cost him his job in the U.S. It was an open secret that his hypertension was poorly controlled. An avid chess lover he could not hesitate to invite you to his house for a game. That is if you impressed him as intelligent. Each evening without fail he took a ride in his benz to just have a feel of the great car. His queerness did not end there; he could come to ward rounds with stodgy novels in his coat pockets and as he found very few literary mates to discourse with, was heard to frequently lament the dearth of reading. He was what they call a man of the world. Too entrusting in the abilities of others when it suited him, he found it no big deal to let the intern conduct the ward round or better still conduct it himself over the phone from the comfort of his couch. Such was the fluidity of his work philosophy.
Dr Sinoma was the other senior member of staff. The oldest actually. Russian trained and without a specialty, it was no secret that both Maloba and Akhungu regarded his merits with suspicion. Every decision he made on a patient was openly questioned by the two. Naturally a genial man, one day he got worked up by these grillings and countered that the surgeon knew no medicine. It was fireworks and the meeting ended with open disagreements. The physician and surgeon might have began on one side but soon parted ways as the physician not in support of Sinoma but because he soon picked his own battles with the surgeon. This actually characterized the morning meetings. Akhungu might have been laid back in his approaches but he was keen and sturdy in any discussion, when the surgeon told him to practice modern medicine, he reminded him how in his earlier days he had won scholarships and awards for his excellent publications and researches. A thing you need to know is that the physician had been the surgeon's lecturer at university and so you may not begrudge him if he passed off as openly erudite. He usually adopted this attitude in their many friendly professional confrontations. A common contentious point apart from the common prescription practices was the physician's always giving the surgical wards a wide berth whenever he was on call, so the surgeon or another doctor had to cover them. But Dr Sinoma was their common punching bag.
Dr Sande was the obstetrician. He was the guy that minded his own business. If you were the average learner you would actually gleam so little from him. If you asked him a thing he would give you the on-point answer. No prelude, no body, no tail. Just what you wanted. Contrast him with Maloba who took his time to detail to you the nitty gritty of pathophysiology and all, not that this was bad, it was his imposing stature that dwarfed you in any discussion. Akhungu went about it in a friendly, jocular manner just like child's play.
Dr Rapando was a doctor off the old mold. His ward rounds were to be loathed for their longevity. He took particular interest in any patient in his ward. Even what was regarded the simplest and straight forward of cases turned out to be a focal point for a lengthy discussion. All the possibilities had to exhausted. By the time the rounds came to a close every one would just be too exhausted from the standing and drawn out lectures. A habit with him was the references to cases he had met at various points in the course of his practice. Then he would point out the mistakes he had made and in the context of the case under consideration make comparisons. He seemed to see in every patient what every one could not imagine. Above all he was an exceptional pediatrician.
That was the motley of consultants, now the real thing...