By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.

I am writing this article from the worldview of someone who is completely ignorant about the workings of the doctors. Therefore, those in the profession should view the opinions, views and assertions made in this write up in that perspective, please.

Besides, I am not about to become one or even challenge you on what I know next to nothing, because I have NEVER been good at Mathematics in my tertiary education, or even that good in Arithmetic, during my primary school time. And one does NOT become a doctor until one is EXTREMELY good at both. Arithmetic and Mathematics, I mean. You can only quantify for the highly coveted course if you are able to make the grades in a very exceptional way. I am NOT that kind of person. I never made any exceptional grades in my entire school life.

As a matter of fact, one exam day while I was in primary school class six, and having failed on the ‘giraffe method’ on my seat mate, I ‘stole’ the arithmetic answer paper of the cleverest pupil in my class after he finished and took it to the invigilator’s desk. I also pretended to have finished the exam, but I did not write anything because I did not know a thing about it. I came back to my seat pretending to have made some mistakes. I copied from the stolen paper and handed my paper to the invigilator and went out and destroyed the classmate’s copy in the hope that he would be given another chance to write the arithmetic exam. And my calculation proved perfect.

I made eight out of ten, and he made ten out of ten. Everyone was happy, more especially yours sincerely, who could have otherwise woefully failed the arithmetic exam. But the first Mathematics continuous exam in secondary school form one, I scored the highest grade. How I managed that feat still remains a mystery to me.

One ‘boy’ from Katsina, the secondary school was in Funtua town, who was later to become the best mathematics student, was surprised at my  ‘brilliance’ that I could get nine correct answers out of ten questions. He was only able to get two correct answers. I bragged that the questions were easy. Believe me, I still do not know how I managed it. The ‘boy’ eventually passed out the West African School Certificate (WAEC) with an ‘A’ grade in mathematics, while yours sincerely finished with an ‘F’ 9. In the math, I mean.

I have never made that confession to anyone, until now. The world should know that I am absolutely poor when it comes to adding two and two. I sometimes get three or five, instead of the correct answer.

That is by the way. What puzzles or even confuses the not too bright brain of yours sincerely, is the apparent contradictory advices the doctors sometimes give to the patients, or say in research papers or just plain lectures. Someone would be told to do or not to do this that very moment, and before one is settled on doing or not doing so, another instruction would come from the doctors that to do so and so or not to do so and so, is beneficial or dangerous to one’s health.

So, what is the poor man like me going to do, because I easily get confused even on simple matters which I have no knowledge of.

For instance, in the 1980s and the 1990s, doctors used to advise against the presence of too much cholesterol in the body. At that time, people were advised against taking ‘too’ much eggs. Three eggs a week were advised to be okay. Then again it was said that cholesterol was good to the body and therefore it was okay to eat eggs regularly. I read both versions of the doctors’s advices in the American Time and Newsweek magazines.

Last week, a friend went to the hospital where the doctor he saw advised him against lying on ‘low pillow’, for sleeping, advising him instead to use high pillow for his sleeps all the time. He later told me that he was previously advised against using high pillow by a doctor.

Of course, there are advancements in every field of endeavour, particularly in the medical field. We are living in the age of technology where today’s wonder is tomorrow’s relic.

The story reminds me of one super brilliant Nigerian doctor who was so exceptionally good that he consulted at leading hospitals around the world. He did his main work in Nigeria, because he did not need to go to foreign lands, they came after him.

It was said that one day a Nigerian monied man visited him in the hospital and complained about a certain ailment. The doctor then advised him on what to do. But not satisfied with the advice, the rich Nigerian decided to seek for second opinion in Germany. Money was no problem for him, he could afford anything anywhere in the world.

On getting to the hospital in Germany, he was told to come back on a given day because the hospital expected its best consultant to come. He was said to be in the US at the time. On the appointed day, the Nigerian money bag went to the German hospital only to find that the Nigerian doctor, whose advice he disregarded in Nigeria, was the ‘best consultant’ being expected.

Anyway, too much of studies is said to make Jack a dull boy. So we should amuse ourselves with this take. It is meant to be so, not to INSULT the doctors, anywhere they may be.

May we never have any ailment that would force us to seek for treatment in foreign lands, since we do not have neither the equipment nor the staff (doctors and nurses) to use them.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.