Cheers for graduating University of Nairobi obstetrics-gynaecology residents

In the next few days the University of Nairobi, School of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology will be assessing and releasing more than 15 doctors who have specialised in obstetrics-gynaecology (OB-GYN). I am privileged and humbled to be part of the team that has been training them over the last four years.

We are proud of the high calibre of residents we have in our programme and at the end of the training, the physicians have proven to be fully qualified practicing obstetrician-gynaecologists and capable leaders in women’s healthcare.

OB-GYNs work in the area of women’s reproductive health and help patients with issues such as family planning, the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and childbirth. They administer Pap tests for cancer of the cervix and mammograms and help patients deal with complications that include fibroid tumours, infertility, preterm labour, and caesarean births thus saving lives at birth.

One of the new doctors had this to say:”Today, it becomes easy to say, ‘I own this. I achieved this. It is mine. Residency, the hospital, the world. I conquered it’. But in reality, it is residency itself, that metaphorical beast I struggled with for so long, that is releasing me from her firm grasp. Letting me go out into the world, setting me free. Hopefully, no more 24-hour, non-stop labour ward calls.

“I do not own this. It is, rather, a shared experience. Thousands of doctors have come before me, have travelled their paths to becoming healers. Thousands of doctors will come after me. The constant observers are time and nature; they watch us, over hundreds of years, coming and going and proclaiming along the way. Our stories all weave together into a tapestry of memories. And so it goes.

“No longer is there a seemingly insurmountable goal looming over me, pressing weight into my shoulders, taunting me, burdening me.

I am here, today. For once, without expectations or concerns. Ready to stretch my mind, reconsider, ask a million questions, dance, break free from the bounds of a predetermined road and embark on a new path, something entirely my own.”

I wish the new doctors success.