SEEDS

All seeds do not have the same destination. Some grow to become trees that live for centuries or even millennia, while others become plants that die off in months. Corn 🌽 seeds yield produce within 3 months, whereas Mango trees take up to 3-5 years to bear fruit! Coco de Mer trees, however, can take up to 25-50 years before you see their first fruits. Imagine the Coco de Mer palm envying the…

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Speech Development

A lot of parents often worry about their children’s speech development. It is very important to spot it early and get help on time. Speech sound disorders involve difficulty producing speech sounds correctly or fluently, which can affect pronunciation and articulation. Children with speech sound disorders may have trouble with specific sounds, syllable structures, or speech patterns. Some of…

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Teach us to number our days

How do we structure our days? How do we plan for each phase of life? It can be challenging, as people can be early achievers or late bloomers. But regardless of our pace of progress, there is a general level that we should aspire to as we grow older. I have broken it into 5 groups for the purpose of this write-up. Age 0–20 years: This is the time of reliance on parents/guardians who give you a…

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Do People Change?

People don’t change; you just didn’t know them enough. Sometimes, even they don’t know themselves enough. They’ve never been exposed to the circumstances that reveal another aspect of themselves. Water will remain liquid at a certain temperature. But that same water will become ice 🧊 at low temperatures and steam 💨 at high temperatures. But if that water is never exposed to heat or cold, it…

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GENDER SELECTION

A lot of women have been ostracised and isolated because of this when actually it is the man that should be punished if at all because it is he the determines the gender of a foetus not the woman. So let’s talk: Gender selection, also known as sex selection, is a process used in reproductive medicine to choose the sex of a child before conception or during pregnancy. However, this write up seeks…

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Lessons from the Future

I always enjoying chatting a little extra with elderly patients. Especially those in their 80s and 90s that are almost triple my age. One of the things I have learned from my hundreds of conversations is that a good life is made of memories. Memories from the places we have lived, visited or “holidayed” in. It is also filled with memories of those we shared our lives with. Families, friends and…

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Reflect to refresh

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Choosing a Specialty

One of the most difficult decision for any clinician to make is choosing a specialty. It is a very daunting decision for a lot of doctors because you get exposed to so many aspects of medicine during training and each one has its advantage over the other. So how do you choose? You go through an extensive training that gives you in-depth knowledge on a lot of topics from anatomy, physiology,…

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Failing Forward

When most people hear the word failure, academic or professional failures are the first types that come to mind. We are told that we’ve failed at an exam or task simply because we didn’t measure up to the standards set by a curriculum or organisation. Failure is a difficult pill to swallow for anyone so how we deal with failure helps shape our progression in life. One of the most important…

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BORN SINNER

I have always struggled with the concept of being “born into sin” as the Bible describes us all. I have always felt it was unfair to lump an innocent new born child with the sins of their parents. Today, I came to understand why my thoughts are not correct and I will explain this a little bit today. Imagine a sovereign nation that is thriving; highly successful, citizens living well in safety…

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ORGANIZED RANDOMNESS

If you walk into an emergency room while the doctors, nurses, every clinical and non-clinical staff are in the middle of their work, it would seem chaotic. It would look like a market place rather than an organized event like medical practice should be. For you it would make no sense but for a health care worker especially a staff of that emergency department, it would make perfect sense. This…

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Remember where you come from.

A lot of us may have heard this phrase a few times from our parents or elders. They tell us when we are about to engage in a new phase of life like going to the university, starting a new job/career or relocating to a new city/country. We imbibe the phrase in us so we sometimes find ourselves saying it in our minds or even out loud when confronted with challenges.But what exactly does it even…

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There's always an Alternative

Stress doesn’t mean better.Complex doesn’t mean competent.Fame doesn’t mean wealth.Tradition doesn’t mean culture.Bossy doesn’t mean leadership.Religious doesn’t mean good.Weird doesn’t mean genius.Popular doesn’t mean rational.There’s always another way to do things. The stressful/complex methods were developed by people who felt it was the best way to do things at the time.As humans develop, we…

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Remain Hungry

Growth is a concept that is easy to understand yet difficult to maintain. At the beginning of our lives, it comes naturally to us. We are guided by our parents, teachers, religious leaders and other adults around us. But how do we continue to grow when we attain adulthood? When we start off at a new job or organization, we get supervisors, managers or bosses who basically guide us to grow in…

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MOVE! YOU'RE NOT A TREE.

MOVE! YOU’RE NOT A TREE.

Everyone can flourish in any work place given the right conditions. I believe that we can put down roots and blossom in our chosen fields like a tree that is well watered and exposed to adequate sunlight. However, this is not always the case as we could encounter challenges that may affect our growth in any organization. These challenges could be related to a lack of support from…

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Of Peaks and Achievements

When you get to the top of the hill, remember what you set out to achieve at the start of your journey. However, a lot of people do not recognize when they are on top of their hill. We set targets to improve ourselves but often fail to realize when those improvements are not towards an upward trajectory rather lateral. The most important thing is to identify when we have reached the peak of our…

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Emotional Support Systems

As Africans, it is our culture to take care of our parents when they are old, frail or sick. It is difficult for us to hand their care over to caregivers. Maybe it is because of how close we tend to be to our parents but we are generally wired that way and it is a good thing. However, caring for the elderly and very sick patients in the hospital as a doctor has given me a few life lessons. First…

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