When They Need Clothes, Clothe Them
By Joselyne Nzisabira
I recall the day the sky in Butaro cried. It was a typical Monday, like any other medical school day.
Excitement, courage, and my love for medicine woke me up at 7AM to grab my white coat and get ready for the day. I was doing my internal medicine rotation and felt privileged to have had Dr. Paul Farmer, a medical anthropologist — and by-then chancellor of UGHE — in our morning reports for the past few weeks. His positive energy and love for his patients always inspired us to become better future doctors as we reflected on the cases being presented. His absence that morning left an unfillable void of not only his leadership but also his fountain of medical knowledge.
When I came back to campus from hospital rotations, I received the unfortunate news that Dr. Paul had passed away. The world mourned losing a hero, patients mourned losing a doctor, and everyone he treated humanely irrespective of their financial capacities lost a friend.
As I sat in my room grieving, a friend came in to see me and gave me the best comfort I was ever given that day. “To live his legacy, whenever you have an opportunity to help a patient, just ask yourself, what would Dr. Paul do?” she said. I haven’t stopped reflecting on it.
A week later I went back to the hospital and followed up on a case of a 52-year-old male patient. I had been assigned to him since I started rotating in the internal medicine ward. The patient has been in the ward for almost a month and was waiting for his bone marrow biopsy results for confirmation of his diagnosis.
That morning when I greeted him, I realized he was not happy yet had no new medical complaints. Part of me wanted to ignore this because I had other patients I needed to also check on but I remembered one of the values I learned from Dr. Paul is to look at patients as a whole, not just human beings in need of drugs.
What would Dr. Paul want to do at this moment? As a student who observed him talking with patients for a long time, I knew he would want to know why the patient was sad.
I made a friendly gesture and asked about his mood. He opened up and told me he needed more clothes because he only had the same outfit he has been wearing for almost a month since he was hospitalized. He also mentioned that he lost his family members in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, and therefore had no one else to ask for help.
One of the values I have learned from Dr. Paul is partnership. I collaborated with the hospital social workers to organize a clothing drive on campus to benefit patients including him. We received a lot of clothes that were distributed to him and other financially disadvantaged patients.
Unfortunately, my patient’s results came in confirming chronic myelogenous leukemia. Two days later, he passed away but I am glad we contributed to making his last days happier because his mood completely changed the day he received clothes.
The next time I meet a patient, I pray I don’t forget to carry Dr. Paul’s legacy. I believe I will only be a good doctor if I am a good human being.
Joselyne Nzisabira, who uses the pen name TheMedPoetess, is a Rwandan female medical student, currently pursuing her MBBS/MGHD degree at the University of Global Health Equity. Joselyne is passionate about global surgery, health equity, mental health, and literature.