The Most Dreaded List in Medical School

And I wasn’t on it

My phone rang.

It was Faith.

I have known her ever since we joined medical school.

We were in the same dissection table. We were the only ones super enthusiastic about dissection. Me on one side, her on the other.

Most of the other table members would want to remove the skin, but Faith and I wanted to go deeper. We developed a good bond seated opposite each other from several afternoons soaked in formalin.

So when I got a call from Faith, it was nothing new.

The day I will never forget

I answered

Hello?

Pause…

Hi Inno. How are you?

The usual.

But there was something about her voice.

She then informed me that the list of students proceeding to the next year had come out.

Okay…

But I couldn’t help but notice your name was not on the list

I thought it was the network. Safaricom was not being the best option at this time.

Wait, what?

I had lost connection.

You see, I had traveled upcountry.

My sister was having one of those ceremonies which have to happen before a formal wedding. As brothers and sisters, we were present to show support.

I stayed for extra days after the event, before my younger brother and sister, fraternal twins, opened school for the new year. My mother likes these sessions.

She calls them bonding sessions.

It was the 3rd of January.

This day is significant in two ways

The first is the call I got from Faith.

I moved closer to the largest tree I had ever seen. There was always a good cell phone connection there. This time it wasn’t as good.

The hell

The last words that still rang loud and clear in my mind were:

I couldn’t help but notice your name was not on the list…

That day I learned of the frustration a sea-faring pirate has in search of buried treasure. In my case, it was finding the best spot with a strong mobile network connection.

I finally found it in the most unexpected place. It was open land, but I don’t know how I got there. Frustration can make you do the craziest of things.

The frustration kept mounting

I called her once again.

She had looked at the list more than once. My name was not there.

There’s something about a mixture of confusion and anger.

Mostly, anger.

Safaricom network makes the largest returns from angry Kenyans. How?

When they make a phone call, and the person on the other side makes them angry, a single phone call is simply not enough. You have to buy airtime and show the other guy why they are insane.

Add confusion to the mix and you exhaust your airtime faster than you could imagine.

Worse still, when the airtime gets depleted, you get angrier.

Now, picture my situation.

I was at a place with the worst network connection. It was not a guarantee that any phone call that went through would hold. It made me angrier and more confused with every attempt at securing a strong connection and having meaningful communication.

I don’t think I have ever bought as much credit for my meagre worth as I have ever done on that day.

I was not on the list.

My other friend, Jayne, who we I sat close to in class, also called me. She was also surprised that my name was not on the list.

She then told me how I was not the only victim.

Several others had issues in different units that had missing marks. Those affected had to go back to school and inquire if they were in the group of people whose marks were missing.

If not, then you did not satisfy the board.

Satisfying the board can mean so many things in medical school. I learned that in my final year.

The phrase is apt. Satisfy the board. I will not talk of the other unscrupulous ways I have heard from colleagues, but only of one of the ways one cannot satisfy the board.

Missing marks

You are not the problem.

The respective department is.

Somehow, the universe does its utmost and they cannot locate your marks. You run the risk of retaking the year because the department did not find your paper.

This is a sad case despite the register showing you sat the exams.

I my case, there was a second issue.

These exams were the easiest exams I have ever sat for.

Easiest!

I have never been more sure of proceeding to the next class than when I did this examination.

The toughest unit that year was pharmacology. And I knew I had nailed it, despite joining a new class.

You see, I had deferred for around a year to pursue another course. The class I had to join had moved topics ahead of my initial class when we joined them to continue with my hiatus in this monster of a unit called pharmacology.

But I had a different problem.

I didn’t care much about pharmacology in my second year of medical school. It was not going to be used to establish if anyone proceeds to the third year. I waltzed through the unit, without a care.

I then joined a class several topics ahead of where I left off. Which is basically starting from scratch since I didn’t care much about pharmacology when I started.

I had to learn from the very beginning.

I also had to catch up with this new class. It was heavy. But somewhere before mid-year, I hacked it.

So when I heard I was not on the list, I knew something was off.

When poop hit the fan

I called my brother and told him about the situation.

He promised to check it out for me. He did.

My pharmacology marks were missing. The rest were okay. I had to go to the department and search for my paper.

Not the department.

Me.

Strange and frustrating.

I was now meant to do the work the department should be doing, on my holiday.

But I was still upcountry.

I continued getting calls from friends telling me how other students had had the same problems. Christine, with whom we shared the same discussion group, told me of her issue when she was in her first year, with her marks.

If one was not keen to follow up, they could retake the year. She insisted that I follow up.

But I was still upcountry.

And when you thought the frustration would end, sh*t hits the fan

You see, the 3rd of January is my mother’s birthday.

I had planned on surprising her with a 2-litre bottle of Sprite for us to take after supper. Sprite is her favourite soft drink. Not that she takes hard drinks.

It was what my ‘deep’ pockets could afford. And a small cake.

But that single phone call ruined everything. I later explained my situation to the birthday girl.

She was calm. She knew that there was an issue and that it would be resolved. I was fuming inside but kept a nonchalant façade.

The following day, she was to go to the booking office to find out if we could travel back to Nairobi.

On that day, hours felt like days.

She took days to come back that day.

When she did, it was worse news. Almost all the buses were booked for the next three days.

My guts and lungs collapsed flat on themselves.

What was this!??!

We were third-year medical students for three years.

One, two three. Three years.

We started in 2017 September.

The following year was interrupted by the national elections. The presidential candidates and their respective supporters were not satisfied. So the nation went for a re-run.

The same year, the doctors had a strike that lasted several months.

The same year, the university lecturers had a strike for weeks.

We finished the year in December.

But the results came out on the 3rd of January, 2019.

Three years in third year.

But those three days I waited for us to go back to Nairobi felt like they were longer.

Just when you think you are done with the worst period, the president makes an announcement.

He instituted a ban against night travel.

We were supposed to travel that night.

I felt like pulling out my hair. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I gave up.

Whatever happens next, let it happen.

That was my defeatist attitude.

The following day, as we drove back to the booking station, the bus we had booked had mechanical issues and could not leave.

I was just done.

The only other vehicle available was a minibus. I had to cough extra cash for us to afford that trip. It did not have any issues.

But I didn’t care.

I had moved from denial to anger, bargained for those three days, gave up, and now accepted whatever came my way.

You know that moment when the Avengers had done everything in their power to stop Thanos but ended up failing? That’s how I felt by the time I was headed back home.

We arrived at Nairobi in the evening. The plan was to show up the following day.

The funny thing was, I resolved all those issues in a single day.

The final step was to get a letter from the dean validating the need for me to proceed to the next year.

It was a relief when I discovered it was a minor issue.

And if you think my problems ended there, you’re wrong. A whole new set was waiting for me in 4th year.

It has to do with several other lists.

But that’s a story for another day.

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