Life as a Foreign-Trained Medical Graduate in Lagos (Part 1)

Hey everyone. So as you all know, I passed the licensing exam here in Nigeria. Some friends asked me to talk about my experience on the blog and I thought why not? I mean, I think it’ll help new medical graduates thinking of writing the exam in terms of preparing themselves for what to expect.

This post is quite long so it’ll have 3-4 parts.

So the journey started in June at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Idi-Araba. I was excited and I didn’t know what to expect. From the website, I got the information about registration. It was somewhere in Victoria Island, Lagos. I was born and raised in Lagos and I still don’t know Lagos. Partly because I didn’t get a chance to explore Lagos before I went to med school. Anyway, I finally got there and they requested for two photocopies of all my documents. I was like really?? I had to find somewhere around to do the photocopies and trust them to say one  ridiculous price because Victoria Island. I finally made all the copies and headed back to the office to submit them. The lady there was nice and it went well.

First day was orientation day. We were all lost. I have never been inside LUTH so I had no idea where to go. I asked around till I got to the place we were directed to. I was late from all the wandering. About 60 people were sitted there waiting for them to start. As usual, they started late. It started with the coordinator of the program in LUTH welcoming us and wishing us a wonderful time in LUTH.

He gave us the schedule for the program and it was then shit started getting real. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I saw some familiar faces from my school and that was refreshing like thank God I’m not alone in this! No one in my school has failed this exam, my sister passed the exam two years ago in Enugu so this is doable right? I said to myself. Ah the pressure was REAL.

• TOSIN