Dilemma of a christian doctor

This write-up you are about to read, was published in the first edition of Sunday Sun in March 2003, some 21 odd years ago.

It was at the commencement of the publication of Sun Newspapers. Mike Awoyinfa was the Managing Director and Dimgba Igwe (of blessed memory) was Deputy Managing Director. At the time, Basil Okafor was the Graphics/Features Editor while Louis Odion was the Editor of the Sunday Sun. 

It was the reputable wordsmith, Mike Awoyinfa, who coined the title of the column and called it “Doctor Sun.” Then Dimgba Igwe suggested that I should kick off my column with an article on the hazards encountered by a Christian doctor during medical practice. I christened the article “The Dilemma of a Christian Doctor.” After 20 years, the topic is still haunting Christian medical practitioners. Now read on…

As a doctor, I am usually inclined to helping a young unmarried girl, who comes to me for abortion – that is to abort an unwanted pregnancy, knowing that if I do not help, she will bring another illegitimate child into the world. Alternatively, she could go to a quack doctor, to procure the abortion. In the process, she might die, or have her womb damaged. She would then become infertile for life and live a life of agony and frustration thereafter. My conscience will flog me if I allow anything to happen to her. I just have to help.

   But as a Christian, I will decline to help, because abortion is morally reprehensible, godly indefensible and legally unjustifiable. It means committing murder and the blood of the murdered baby might be on my head, and that throws the gates of hell open for me. It is straight passport to damnation.

As a doctor, I am inclined to allow the proverbial sleeping dog lie, by not telling a man with blood genotype AA that the sickle cell child, with a genotype of SS, which his wife presented him as his child, can never, repeat, never be his. It is an absolute impossibility for him to father such a child. Even if his wife’s genotype is SS, the worst they could produce is an AS, never SS. I would usually keep quiet so as not to break up the family. I won’t tell him that his wife must have slept with another man who has either AS or SS. No, I won’t. 

   But as a Christian, God demands that I tell the man the truth, that I tell him that his wife must have been unfaithful to him. God demands that I tell him that it is either his child must have been conceived by another man, or that they were given a wrong baby at the hospital, at birth. I should tell him that since his genotype which has been verified by three different, reputable laboratories, came out with the same AA, that a child with SS can never be his. Since he is supposed to contribute one of the genotypes, he would contribute only A and never S.

As a doctor, I should usually play it cool or down, if you wish, if a woman barges into my office screaming blue murder, as it were, calling her husband names. She would shout her complaints that her husband gave her a dose of infection (STD) which he must have contracted from any of his numerous girlfriends. But when confronted, the rogue said that she could have gotten the infection from a toilet seat! That cheating Casanova forgot that they have a pit latrine without a seat, not a water cistern. That the only time she ever sat on a toilet seat was some four years ago when she visited her uncle in Lagos. She would holler, “Doctor is it true, can one get a sexually transmitted disease from a toilet seat, which manifests after four years?

A precarious situation. Despite the fact that the man and his girlfriend are secretly receiving treatment from me for the same ailment, I should tell the woman to take it easy. I should ask, rhetorically, “Who told you that you have sexually transmitted disease? She would then add that she learnt the husband has been visiting my hospital with a girl for treatment. “Doctor, is it true?” she would demand. I would tell her to calm down and stop listening to rumours. That if her husband visits my hospital it must not necessarily be for treatment.

   But as a Christian, I would tell the woman, no. what you have did not come from a toilet seat, which you sat upon, some four years ago. What you have could have come from your husband, since you have emphatically denied any contact with another man. Madam, I would say, go home and bring your husband along. Two of you need to be treated together. I would actually be setting a trap to see if the man could have the effrontery to come with his wife and pretend he was not receiving treatment with his girlfriend, whom he claimed was his wife, until I knew better.

As a doctor, I have had several occasions where women would quietly confess to me that the babies they are carrying do not belong to the husbands, and I would be sworn into secrecy, and agree to protect the woman’s reputation so as not to break up the family. Some of them I would ask why. They would confess that they knew their husbands were impotent and could not impregnate them, since they have done several tests which proved the husbands had low sperm counts and wrongly told to take some concoction which will improve their sperm count. That they were sleeping with other men in the afternoon during their ovulation and with their husbands at night.

But as a Christian doctor, I would advise the woman to go home and tell the husband the truth, that if the husband comes to ask me I would tell him the truth, as a Christian.

As a doctor, I should get up every morning, brush my teeth, take my bath, eat, get dressed and go to work with great expectations. I should do my consultations, bill the patients accordingly, collect my fees and smile all the way to my bank. I should not unduly bother how the patients get their money, whether they have to sell their most prized possessions or whether they have to borrow to generate enough funds for my bill. All I should concern myself with is that for them to get treated, they have to pay. If you can’t pay, “too bad,” after all, I do not run a charity organization. As I finish with each patient, I should shake his hand and tell him, “see you again”, meaning, in the literary sense, that I expect him to fall sick again and come back.

But as a Christian doctor, when I wake up in the morning I pray, I thank God for little mercies, I pray to God for a good day. Wait a minute; I ask myself, what is a good day in a doctor’s life? Am I praying for people to fall sick and come to my hospital? Am I praying for people to develop acute abdominal pain so that when they come, I diagnose acute appendicitis, take them

to the theatre, open them up, and collect my fees? 

Am I praying for a pregnant woman to find it difficult to deliver normally, so that I could do a Caesarian section in the theatre and collect my exorbitant fees? 

Am I praying for more road accidents, so as to have a lot of wounds to stitch, amputations to make, and more dressings and nursing – so as to keep smiling to the bank?

Wait a minute again, I ask myself, is my position akin to a coffin seller or a grave digger? Who will occasionally come home complaining of poor business? The old adage comes to mind: if you sell coffin and complain of poor business, you should die and be buried with your coffin so that your business will progress. Am I actually a coffin seller? Do I profit through other people’s misfortune?

I speculate on God’s position. Nobody will actually envy God. As a doctor, I pray for a good day. My patients, on the other side of the divide, pray for good health, so that they do not have to visit my hospital. If God answers theirs and rejects mine, that means bad business for me. No patients. No bills. No fees. No money and no progress. Do I then fold up like St Luke, the medical doctor who abandoned his profession to follow Jesus? Now, Jesus is no longer physically around, but I know I could follow him spiritually. We can’t all be priests, but that, my good friend, is only a part of a Christian doctor’s dilemma. That is just a tip of the iceberg. 

Always be medically guided.

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