A destiny helper is someone who helps you to achieve what God has predestined you to be. Today, one of Africa’s leading urologists, Prof. Ajibola Jeje of the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital pays homage to an Indian doctor whom God used to train him as a surgeon at the then Ikeja General Hospital where he had come for his National Youth Service. It’s a moving story about mentorship. He told me his story at the Lagos Teaching Hospital where he heads the Urology Department.
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My journey to becoming a doctor starts from my father who insisted I must become a medical doctor when all I wanted was to be an engineer. At the University of Ife where I came out as a doctor in 1981, I had a few mentors who at various levels of my studentship, my house job, and my internship had served as role models. I knew I was going to specialise because I saw my teachers as role models. I changed from being a paediatrician to become a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist (O&G)—those who look after pregnant women. But the major game-changer was when I came to Lagos for my NYSC and was posted to LASUTH, then called Ikeja General Hospital. I was posted to the Surgery Department and was lucky enough to work with one Indian doctor called Krishna in 1982. And he was such a loving senior colleague. He asked me one day: “Are you truly interested in surgery?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Fine, I will do my best to groom you.”
He then made me buy a book about operation. So whenever we had any emergency or any procedure to do, he would allow me to go and read about it. And then when we came to the table, he would start teaching and showing me how to be a good surgeon. My senior colleagues never realised the man was teaching me a lot of surgery. That made my interest grow. I also realised the financial implications of being a surgeon. Your skill fetches you money. At your free time, you can go and operate somewhere else and be paid. You are not only happy operating people and solving people’s problems, it also comes with some remuneration that makes you happy and proud.
Dr. Krishna gave me the direction of what the future would be. He showed me many things. He was telling me he would even pay for me to see some cases that he wanted me to do before I left the service. He built skill and confidence in me. I felt so indebted to him. This was someone I never knew from Adam. And not a Nigerian. I just came for NYSC and he saw that this young man seems to be interested in this field, he comes to work early, I like his attitude to work. He asked me what I wanted to do in future and I said surgery. And he decided to teach and mentor me. We would review cases together, he would teach me what to do before we went to the theatre, and then he would show me so many things. I was so much impressed.
Mentoring is important in any field. You cannot wish away the value of mentorship. That’s what I am trying to do now. I wrote a paper recently on the mentoring experiences of the young doctor. In medicine, you look at the man in front of you and the way he relates to you. As a medical student in Ife in those days, we were not too many in class. I do remember that one of our teachers, Professor Anthony Arigbabu would invite us to his apartment to watch films on surgical operations. He would put on a video and we would see how operations are done. He treated us like children. When I was doing my house job, I did the O&G aspect of the house job under a prominent lady gynaecologist, Dr. Abiola Oshodi. The woman took us like her sons. So mentoring is absolutely important. As a medical student and young doctor, there is a lot of stress. So when you see a senior person who treats you, understands what you are going through, talks to you, encourages you in various forms, it goes a long way to develop your confidence to navigate the path ahead. And it also goes a long way for you to be able to pass it on to the ones coming behind.
In my clinic these days, I allow my juniors to see my patients while I am there. It gives them confidence. I am there, but they are being seen by my juniors. And they would see me discussing with my juniors about their treatment. The reason is that if I am not there, they would say they are not going to see him. But if I am there with him, they would see the two of us. Next time they don’t see me, they would allow the junior to see them.
UROLOGY
Urology, my specialty, is the disease of the urinary system which comprises the kidney where urine is formed, urethra that carries urine from kidney to bladder. Urethra is like a pipe and then the bladder where urine is stored, and then is emptied out through a pipe called the urethra. Between the bladder and the urethra is a gland called the prostate which is a major disease in men—the young and the middle-aged. Then you have the genitalia which is the scrotum—where you have the testes. So it is mainly the management of the disease of the urinary system. You can call it genital urinary system. So we manage the urinary system in women but the genital and urinary system in men. Urinary system in women, which means the kidney, the urethra and the bladder. But the genital and the urinary system in men. Which means the kidney, urethra, bladder, the phallus, the prostate and the testicle.
The prostate is a small kola nut-shaped organ present in men and essentially important for being able to father a child. It produces some fluid which adds to the ejaculates that make it possible to father a child. Its growth depends on the male hormone which is called testosterone. So as one grows older, it gets big. Because it wraps round the base of the bladder and the penis, as it gets bigger, it causes some degree of compression there, and makes you and I to pass urine more often than we normally would have passed urine. Because it doesn’t allow you to empty your bladder at once. By the time you get to 50, 60, you get much worried in the sense that when it is getting bigger, we want to make sure that that growth is not cancerous. And that’s why we plead with all black men, 45 and above, to always have a regular medical check-up, assess their prostate and check the blood test that can tell you the nature of what is in prostate. Because the earlier you pick any abnormality in the prostate, the better.