Be Not Conformed

    

    Abdominolaporo, as he later came to be famously called had no idea where it all went wrong. He hated that nickname. The last time someone shouted it out was in a conversation with a girl he had a budding, growing fondness for, and exploded at the heckler in private later. The ongoing talking stage had to be given up on. She had used all the weakness for females that he had to pry out of him the origin of the nickname and then proceeded brutally to mock all his chivalry out of him until he simply walked away. She had chosen to ignore his obvious discomfort; she had no right to chase him, saying it was just a joke. It was a joke he was much too tired of hearing. He rued the day he made the mistake that proceeded to mess up his life.

    It was a morning ward round like any other day. He had done absolutely nothing out of the normal. Maybe he ought to have prayed a bit more. He was in his usual state of rote daydreaming at the back of that arc that students make on ward rounds. Dreaming, of course, of the normal dreams: being diligent, getting a distinction in both medicine and surgery, dating that fair-skinned, fine- and there it was. He was jolted out of transient alert hallucinations when his optic pathway finally woke his prefrontal cortex up from disinhibition. Why? Well, he had just missed the tail end of one of his classmates mumbling the tail end of the answer to a question. A question he did not know. It followed then, of course, that the answer eluded him, too.

    The stage was set for a ruined week as he realized that the senior registrars on the round, as well as a passing unitʻs consultants, were staring at him in that condescending sneer that said, “These are the students that will ruin this great institution." He introspected deeply, trying to see if the secrets of Sherlock Holmes-ic thought could get him out of this. His default solution for situations like this was simple, deduce as much as possible, confirm by pouring out the response that best fits his final deduction, regulate the rate of pus flow by how much approval was on the questioner's face, and cook the rest like a true, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan medical student who passed MB1 with more pus than stuff. He was here and present, ready to bamboozle them. They knew not what he had brought with him.

    And so it was that with distinction student aura levels and composure at a record high of 102%, our student on gastrointestinal surgery rotation proceeded to reason out at light speed ʻThis round started with a case of a woman with abdominal distension, the next was a post-operative review of an acute abdomen that presented the night before pointing to a gastrointestinal solution. I remember that this particular bed had a radiography folder from two-tees at the bedside. Also, the shadow of the endings of an answer I read on that good friendʻs lips looked like an -omy or an -opy. ʻGoing for the first thing that popped to the surface of his consciousness, he said loudly “Sir, going by the patient’s earlier mentioned symptoms…”, he misread the growing amusement in the senior registrarʻs face as motivation and encouragement, and continued with even more confidence, “The procedure is a laporoscopy.”

    The embarrassment that followed started with a unanimous, almost rehearsedly chorused, mirthful guffaw that took the rest of the ward by surprise. He could not for the life of him figure out what was wrong but in keeping with the rules of the composure cult, he laughed along with everybody else, which raised the laughter levels even higher. This was followed by a loud, prolonged bout of vituperation from a consultant of that passing unit. After which was a punishment of calls for the rest of the six-week posting, about four weeks. He felt it was a bit excessive for one wrongly pronounced syllable. He would never be able to figure out why it was such a big deal. The icing on the cake was when a senior registrar proceeded, in peak awada-ic fashion, to perform a few minutes of impromptu stand-up comedy based entirely on his little faux pàs.

    Every time he asked his mates about why one little mistake was such a big deal, he never got it. It turned out that a couple of minutes before, the senior registrars and passing consultants had finished discussing humorously something called “freshly clinical syndrome." This was a collection of conditions whose hallmark was another syndrome, eight-grader syndrome. The pathogenesis here was the fact that many who passed the MB1 would arrive at the hospital feeling like gods. Other symptoms and signs included clinical apathy, daydreaming on rounds, and the Sickleʻs triad. The Sickleʻs triad involved a.) excuses of sickness, b.) inability to convincingly report presenting symptoms, usually complicated by a reluctance to go to the staff clinic and bring back a letter from a doctor, and finally, c.) full resolution of the entire condition on the assurance of drastic measures that affect the “indisposed” patient or; for even quicker results, that affects the entire group. The consultant had spoken about a case scenario where a student would not be able to answer a question after having been present only in the body on a round. The imaginary student would then proceed to talk about a laparotomy for a patient with a hypofunctional thyroid gland and goitre. The student, as explained by the consultant, would do this, believing themselves to be skilled enough to effectively constitute pus to a form that was not too off for a little pat on the back. Laporo had done something similar, except he had even mispronounced his cooked answer.

    The shame never left him. The repercussions of his actions following his sudden infamy were chronic. The one good thing, relatively speaking, was that his fit at the heckler who ruined his shot shooting had been heard very loudly. So people ceased calling him abdominolaporo, even behind his back. His new nickname, unaware to him, was do not conform. A reminder to his mates, and hopefully to future generations, that the jungle called the hospital is full of monsters. Very few of these monsters wear human skin, most are concepts and traps hidden behind actions and decisions. It is not for no reason that the hospital is known to doctors who have walked its horrifyingly packed wildlands as ʻThe School of Conscienceʻ. It is not for no reason. Here, you shall be stretched to the limits of sanity and then made to know that that is only the beginning of your stretching. The stretching will continue far past the limits of sanity and the lands beyond is where you shall build your new homes. You will not be normal on leaving if you submit to the process.

   Abdominolaporo would never forget his welcome, a welcome to “the school of conscience."

Salami Wisdom