JAMILA'S MEMO: Just how small is a medical intern? Through Moses Kuria's eyes

There is a common saying that goes, if you are shouting, you are losing the argument. The same adage also guides on the rules of a debate. And the golden rule is, do not demean your opponent. Some of these things are also just about basic manners. Do not insult your opponent just because you are not winning the argument.

So I noticed that Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria does not think medical interns are all that. In fact, he insinuates that they have not even sat for exams; he says they have just done Continuous Assessment Tests (CATs). In belittling interns, Moses Kuria stopped short of suggesting the bunch has nothing to do with medicine in the first place.

Now, the CS may be well guided that this is exactly how to sound when you are losing an argument. Make those interns sound small. They are not small enough, make them smaller. Is any of them tall, make them short, reduce them to miniature medical interns, make them as distant as possible to the title and roll of doctor. If you can, fold them in candy wrappings and, Yeah, do you have a nearby trash can? Throw them there. Again, CS, this is exactly how to sound when you are losing an argument.

And did I hear you say that you will never pay them as long as you are CS? Well, some of them may tell you, they are struggling with where you come in the first place. All demonstrations have somehow avoided your office and ended up in Upper Hill where the Ministry of Health is based. Clearly these little people have no sense of direction, small they must be. Or they may just be accurate on which desk should address their issue, and that is the Ministry of Health.

After the remarks by CS Kuria, I decided to just find out who these interns are and what really constitutes a medical intern. This is what I found out:

Medical interns are new medical graduates who have attained two degrees in one, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. The training takes a minimum of 6 years, after which they are assessed by senior doctors and external examiners. They are then certified and deemed to be competent enough to practise as medical doctors. The interns are posted by the Ministry of Health to either government hospitals, faith-based ones or large private hospitals.

They are licensed by the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council to practice medicine in those institutions they have been posted to. As a medical intern, you are licensed; the licence is given from the first day, and there is no employment without a licence to practise as a medical doctor for the duration of the internship, which is usually 1 year. This means they are recognised by the necessary regulatory bodies as having the qualification to practice medicine.

During that year, the interns are practicing under the supervision of consultants. An intern works on a day-to-day basis with patients, doing night and day duty. A doctor tells me when he was an intern, for that one year he barely slept in his bed. There was no time to even remove his shoes or get a blanket. He would fall asleep on the sofa and his sleep would be cut short by a call from the hospital; kuna emergency, njoo haraka. Their shifts are crazy, an intern can work for up to 72-hour shifts.

Interns are the first ones you encounter at the hospital. The consultant comes for the ward rounds and gives input in terms of experience and expertise in certain situations. The ones who man the hospital and see patients are the interns. The doctor I spoke to says during the 3-month rotations they do, he once saw the consultant twice. In another instant, the paediatric consultant resigned in the beginning of the rotation and he was left alone, with no one to direct him. He made it by reading and trying to figure things out by himself. After this one year of supervision, these doctors can now apply for licences to practise without consultant supervision.

And after all that to say they are just students and not medical interns, to say they have only done CATs and are no different from interns in other fields is just plain wrong. Belittling and rubbishing all that they go through to be called a medical doctor should not be tolerated or encouraged. Give medical interns the importance they clearly deserve and meet them at that level; do not look down on them, after all they really are doctors.

That is my Memo!