My fifth year in medical school gives me something I’ve looked forward to since 100 level: meaning. In year one, I took physics, chemistry, and zoology classes, but they felt irrelevant and even distracting. The classes were crowded with people from different departments. Attending them was more out of a duty to justify my school fees than the fear of not passing. What’s new about chemistry that they want to teach me? I managed to survive the preclinical classes and the rugged baptism that was pharmacology and pathology in my fourth year, but being in a purely clinical class has been… a revelation.
My initial junior postings in medicine and surgery offered a glimpse, but I was stuffless. I barely knew pathology or disease symptomatology. I didn’t know how to clerk, how to apply the 5Cs without checking my notes. But those initial classes prepared me for 500 level, which I arrived at recently with greater confidence and maturity.
My first posting in this level, the junior Obstetrics and Gynaecology posting or O&G 1, gave me the most exciting learning experiences of my medical training. I walked through every part of the O&G, conscious of what I was learning and what I needed to learn. Everything felt useful, relevant. From the very first encounter with a pregnant woman who had come for her antenatal visit, to learning how to build rapport, and to the intricate management of a woman with breech presentation, I felt I was learning what I came to medical school to learn.
O&G was an emphatic ride. Every moment drew me deeper into the beauty of the medical profession. Compared to my previous postings in pathology and pharmacology, which felt abstract and theoretical, O&G 1 was profoundly relatable. These were real people, real cases, and real management decisions that affected lives. It finally felt like I was practising medicine, not just studying it.
I remember learning about infertility in class and then, a few days later, meeting couples in the clinic struggling with it. Every question we were taught to ask and every possible risk factor to rule out suddenly made sense. The condition was no longer a chapter in a textbook; it was a lived reality for a couple sitting across the table. Engaging them meant I wasn’t trying to answer an SAQ or an LAQ. I wasn’t trying to please an examiner or play the robotic student ready to recite a clerking or an answer he has memorised. Engaging that couple meant I was contributing to solving real problems for real people. It was thrilling.
O&G revealed itself as one of the most holistic aspects of medicine. It may sound awkward that a man may be so moved by a speciality that focuses squarely on women’s health and pregnancy, but I find O&G appealing because it weaves together the biological, emotional, and social dimensions of health. The lecturers didn’t need to persuade us to love it; the field sold itself.
The highlight of my posting came the night I witnessed labour and childbirth for the first time. Watching the woman fight through the active stage of labour, her patience tested, contraction after contraction, until she achieved full dilatation, was both inspiring and humbling. The second stage brought a surge of energy: her pushing, the coordinated efforts of the midwives, the rhythmic coaching. “Ẹ pẹ̀lẹ́. Oya, push!” And then, the cry. The moment when struggle turned to relief, exhaustion to joy. Phew. The third stage, the delivery of the placenta, carried its own quiet satisfaction, the completion of a miraculous process. The emotions of that night remain unforgettable. This was not textbook stuff. No amount of reading class materials or Ten Teachers or Agboola could give me that thrill.
It was a night of transformation for me. I had always respected women, especially the few significant ones in my life, but witnessing childbirth redefined that respect entirely. I saw strength in its rawest form, resilience that no textbook can explain. My classmates and I became her emotional support, urging her on with each push, and when the baby finally arrived, we shared in her tears of triumph.
My Junior O&G posting didn’t just teach me the science of childbirth; it taught me the sanctity of life itself. It showed me what it truly means to be a doctor; to stand beside strength, to witness vulnerability, and to play a small part in life’s most sacred beginnings. That night in the labour ward changed me. In the cries of a newborn, I heard the echo of every lesson medicine had been trying to teach me: patience, empathy, and respect for life. And in that moment, beneath the soft light of the delivery room, I didn’t just witness a birth, I experienced one myself.
As narrated by: Patrick Samuel (Ilorin, Nigeria).
This snippet is published as part of the series, Surviving Medical School.
Discover more from Chronycles
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Published by