Bittersweet or Sweet - My NYSC Experience

I finished a somewhat atypical NYSC year about a few months back.
The experience was a mix of different things.

As part of the requirements for a Graduate of a recognized Tertiary Institution in Nigeria, one is expected to serve the country, working and spending time in community and contributing to the economic, social and cultural landscape - at least that's what it's supposed to be.

Nowadays with the rise of issues with security, poor remuneration amongst other things, it has become less of a desire to even want to participate in the program.

However, to get certain jobs and to be eligible for certain positions in the Nigerian employment landscape, majority of employers demand that one engages in this 1-year programme.

After applying for the programme upon finishing school, you are posted to a State of the country where you are expected to serve for a year.
During your stay there, you will be required to initially attend a 3-week long camp in the state you get posted to. You get to have some orientation, interact with people and get some drilling with military personnel

Starting from moments in the NYSC camp, I was "privileged" to be part of 2 doctors that was on ground for the majority of the camp period. And you can guess what that means - Work🤧

Usually, there are significant numbers of doctors posted to camps, except for exceptions.
In fact the camp before mine had 52 doctors on ground.
It was therefore surprising to have 2 doctors in my time!

So my camp was basically very tiring. I hardly went out to catch any fun.
I was seeing an average of about 100 corpers each day with all sorts of complaints.
I was practically eating, sleeping and waking up to see patients. Couldn't go out much. I couldn't even take part in the morning drills.
From as early as 4am or earlier, emergencies already start trooping in.
At some point, I'll have to take out time to eat in-between patients.
Food had to be brought to clinic for medics.

Trying to gobble something before the next patient

It was such an experience that at some point I even had to do minor surgical procedures for field injuries.

The Nurses and Physiotherapists were also under pressure.
I wanted to leave the camp but I stayed cos I was the Camp Chief Medical Director. I couldn't imagine the other doc having to face the stress. At some point we had to recruit doctors already serving in that state to help with the camp.

So basically, my camp experience was all about WORK. I still made great friends though. Friends that I still have till today.

The Medical Team

We had to close clinic towards the end of camp just to get some time off to relax😅

But I managed to catch fun a few times.

After the camping period, we were posted to various parts of the states where we were expected to serve Nigeria.

Docs are few in Nigeria already, so I would expect that the camp stress wasn't the end of it.

And sure it wasn't. My Place of Primary Assignment was fair enough, but stressful nevertheless.

And then there is this weekly Community Development Service (CDS) suff we did each week where all Corp Members in a Local Givernment come together to engage in community service... at least that's what it's supposed to be.
I'm sure anyone who has served in Nigeria and is reading this can relate with how annoyingly stressful the programme is🤦.

With my CDS pal and great friend, catching a pic while waiting to get signed off

To cap it, I was the Medical CDS President for my state.

At this point I could say I was one of the few TRULY SERVING NIGERIA😂.

All in all I tried to have some fun when I could and also add something to my community.
In my CDS we came up with an initiative where we developed an online medical podcast programme - the first of its kind in Nigeria hosted by a friend and senior colleague. We called it "Kópà Wí".
That was fun to create, even though we're still working on ensuring its continuity.

Listen here

And then came the last parts of the whole experience... Passing Out Parade.

And this was where many goodbyes were said.
I had few goodbyes to say though heartfelt goodbyes, cos I had few friends.

And my POP experience?
Was such a different vibe!

Watch out for Part 2 of My NYSC Experience!