Random thoughts

Entering the work force

2010-05-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

So I am about to finish my infectious disease fellowship. Yep... after more than a decade of post-secondary education, I will be finally getting a real job. This fact has occupied my mind for the past few weeks. I have been trying to figure out where we will live, what I will be doing, what salary is reasonable.

The first decision is whether to go into private practice or to look for an academic job. Ordinarily this would be an easy decision. I have always been interested in an academic job because it would potentially allow me to do some international health related projects. Unfortunately it is not that simple. I am married now. This means having to factor in what my wife thinks which is not always the same as what I am thinking. I also have to think about money now. In my younger, more liberal days, money was not that important. I believed that individual happiness did not necessarily correlate with money. Well I am older now. I still don't think money can buy happiness. But in the context of being a family man, it is important to ensure that one's family doesn't have to struggle.

The perfect job would be one that allows me to work towards achieving my goals, brings me personal happiness and is financially rewarding so my family would be comfortable. It has been a stressful time considering what to do. I hope whatever job I get will satisfy the above conditions.

Life can be too short

2010-03-05T06:04:00.000-08:00

I recently returned to the U.S.A. after spending 18 months in Kenya as part of my infectious disease fellowship training. During my time in Kenya, I worked at an HIV/AIDS clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. It was while working at the clinic that I met Miss A. Miss A was a very friendly young lady in her early 20s. She was HIV positive and based on her extremely low CD4 count, she had full blown AIDS. When I first met her, she complained of severe abdominal pain, diarrhea and some nausea. She had just been started on antiretroviral drugs (HIV treatment) about 10 days prior to me seeing her. She was obviously in some discomfort, yet she remained friendly. She spoke proudly of her young child in school and on seeing my name, she informed me that she had previously been married to a nigerian. Unsure of what was causing her symptoms, I admitted her to the hospital and stopped the antiretroviral drugs. I also put her on medications to treat her symptoms. She improved over the course of the following 2 days and I discharged her from the hospital. At the time of discharge, I gave her my contact information and arranged to see her in clinic as follow-up. I later re-started the antiretroviral drugs.

Following her discharge, I saw her only once in clinic but she would call once in a while when she had questions about her treatment and sometimes just to thank me for being her doctor. After sometime, I stopped hearing from her. I later heard that she had been admitted to another hospital and was severely ill. I considered going to the other hospital to visit her and see how she was doing but later decided against it. I tried calling her but her cell phone had been disconnected. A few weeks later, I was informed that she had passed away.

Miss A was in her early 20s when she passed away. From my limited interactions with her, she appeared to be bright, intelligent and hard working. Why did such a good person have to die so young? Why is healthcare infrastructure so poor in some places but good in others? Why should one's life chances be limited by the circumstances of where they were born? Surely no one can control what country and what socio-economic background they are born to. These are the strange mysteries of life I suppose. Life seems like a strange and random assortment of occurrences. None of us truly knows how and why we human beings exist. Is there a powerful force guiding the seemingly random occurences of life? Who knows. What we do know is that we are all born, we live for varied amounts of time and then we die. We simply have to make the most of the lives that we have. We must never let the minor day to day toils of life get us down. We should strive for happiness as best we can in our day to day lives. And we should strive to be good to whomever we meet in the course of our lives.

About me

2010-03-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

Hi All,
I am new to the blogosphere. I wanted to have a platform to share my thoughts and views with the world... so here goes. I consider myself to be a citizen of the world having been raised in 2 different and sometimes conflicting cultures. I was born in Colorado, USA to nigerian immigrant parents. Shortly after my birth, my parents moved from Colorado to Alabama, USA. I briefly lived in Nigeria for about 10 years between the ages of 3 and 13 before moving back to Alabama. The rest of my formative years were spent in Alabama. The varying socio-cultural settings of my upbringing have made me who I am. I am as proud of my Alabama upbringing as I am of my Nigerian lineage.

I am a physician by training and hope that I can use my skills and life experiences to make a positive mark on globe. In the course of my medical training, I have had the opportunity to work briefly in Zambia, Jamaica, Sierra Leone and most recently in Kenya. The rich experiences I had in each of these countries have also contributed to my views on life. The diverse interpersonal interactions I had in these countries contributed immensely to my growth as a person.

I believe that fundamentally we are all human beings first and foremost. Identity (whether defined as race, religion, country or tribe) is an artificial, emotional and arbitraty construct. We all have a strange need to 'be a part of a group'. This need for identify unfortunately causes unnecessary division, intolerance and sometimes hatred. At the end of the day, all human beings are bound by similar wants, needs and aspirations. We are all at some level, citizens of the world. The sooner we realize this, the better we all will be.