Titilayo Akinlose, who graduated with a distinction in Pharmacy from Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State, tells MOTUNRAYO AKINRUN how hard work and determination helped her to surmount the challenges she faced as an undergraduate
Can you describe the moment you found out you had a distinction in Pharmacy?
My name is Titilayo Akinlose and I am 26 years old. I am from Ondo State, Irele-Ikale to be precise. My parents are petty business people; my dad is a thrift collector and my mum is a small-scale trader. My journey toward having a distinction wasn’t rosy at all and just as they would always tell a first-year student, whatever grade you leave a school with is dependent on your first-year grade point average and mine was far below what I expected or wanted.
I was offered admission pretty late and the first semester was already two months gone which made my catching up with the missed classes quite intense, a situation that eventually had a dent on my GPA; this further made my achievement of a distinction seemingly impossible. I had a GPA of 3.77 but with the help of God, sincere determination, and hard work, my GPA gradually began to rise until the 300-level when I was able to hit a GPA of 4.8 and a cumulative GPA of 4.53. At that moment, I felt I had achieved what I always longed for, as it was obvious that every bit of the hard work I invested had paid off, unknown to me that my excitement was about to be short-lived and what every student feared was lurking around the corner and waiting patiently for me.
What inspired you to pursue a career in Pharmacy?
My major inspiration came from a patent drug dealer who happened to be the only available drug shop owner in my area at that time. Her knowledge of different medicines and what each worked for baffled me. Most especially, her ability to interpret the doctor’s prescription effortlessly was the icing on the cake and I was solely determined to read prescriptions just like her. Unknown to us, most of her recommendations were mainly for syndromic treatment, so she could mix a capsule of analgesics, antibiotics, blood-building medicines, etc., and ask the patient to take them all at once with little regard to the pharmacology, interactions, and safety of these combinations. Although the patent store was closed down due to some financial problems she had then, I imagine some places in Nigeria that don’t have access to quality drug acquisition and pharmaceutical care.
Did you always desire a distinction in Pharmacy or just a good result?
Oh yes, it was my big dream to finish school with an excellent result. Having a distinction as my reward from pharmacy school after taking the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination for three years isn’t too much to want for oneself. Or is it?
Did you ever have a bad result as an undergraduate?
I did not pass a course during my undergraduate years and it was a course in the Department of Clinical and Bio-pharmacy. My 400-level year was a period I will always call my ‘dark cloud’ as this phase brought out different dimensions in me that I never thought I could exhibit. Depression, self-doubt, fear, anxiety, and tears were my constant partners as most times I would always cry myself to sleep due to the hectic academic workload one was expected to cope with and then I had to a carryover in one of the bulkiest courses I thought I had escaped. Ha, it was mentally draining. Pharmacy school is indeed not for the weak at heart. How I was able to scale through that level and still go through my regular academic routine without having another carryover was indeed divine help from God.
To every student reading this, failing a course, or having an extra year isn’t the end of the world; having the right system of help during that period is all that is needed to make a difference. Also, permit me to correct the notion that failure is only for unserious students. Anyone can be a victim and this is not a result of one’s poor academic prowess, it can just happen and most students tend to just allow that to pile up when they don’t have the right channel of help from lecturers, other students, etc, as some lecturers can make life unbearable for some students. I did not pass PCL 403 (Pharmacotherapeutics). The name alone indicates how bulky this course, the indications, treatment, and pharmaceutical care of different diseases you can think of, but thank God that it is now history.
What did you think was responsible for the failure?
I would hold the hectic academic workload responsible. PCL 403 was one of the courses I offered at that level and it was unnecessarily bulky. It wasn’t the only one I took and if I can remember vividly, we had about five bulky courses to take, all at the same level, with different topics and lecturers handling them, and one was expected to assimilate all of them. The way pharmacy school is structured, we take tests (in courses) every week for each of the lecturers who taught us, which further implies that one must always be reading the different handouts, textbook recommendations, etc. It was a whole lot to deal with at that time. Aside from the hectic workload, I guess it was too much to bear mentally that I lost my guard and my preparation for the exams wasn’t enough. The way the exam timetable was structured for that semester wasn’t favorable at all. We took exams every day and that meant that we would have to stay awake every night to read, Not having enough time to rest and prepare well for each paper might have been another factor that contributed to the failure in the course. My results for that level were not so good at all and failing the course made them extremely obvious.
How frustrating was it and did you ever imagine that you would still get a distinction?
The ripple effect of the failure was extremely felt during my final year as I was meant to attend lectures for the course I failed and my major 500-level courses, sometimes at the same time. At some point when I couldn’t cope, I had to speak with my course adviser that I was tired and wanted to give up and that I didn’t mind just sitting with anything I saw at the end of the semester, but he advised me not to give up; he became my underground motivator, always monitoring my grade point and would appreciate every little effort I expended in my quest to redeem my dream of graduating with a distinction.
What kind of support did you get from your family and friends during that difficult time?
My colleagues in the course I had to retake were the ones who helped most when it was obvious that I had to make my attendance for my final-year classes a priority; they were the ones helping me with recording the missed lectures, notes, assignments, etc. My classmates and some lecturers were also helpful; no doubt, the right system of help paved the way for me during that period. I didn’t tell them at home that I failed a course, not because they weren’t going to support me; I just didn’t want to raise any unnecessary tension at home that my final year was at risk and any mistake could cost an extra year knowing the fact of how difficult it had was raising money to pay my school fee. The help I got was mostly from my friends for which I am forever grateful.
What other steps did you take to pass the course and what was your score or grade?
The first thing I did that helped was always to reaffirm to myself that I wasn’t going to allow my failure to become more any time I had my emotional breakdown. I wrote reaffirming words on my sticky notes and would always check up on them most often as the going was getting tougher. Also, I started preparing for the examination for the affected course way before the session to retake it, That is, I failed the course in the first semester of the 400 level. So, that means that I had to rewrite it in the first semester of the 500-level almost six-month intervals. Immediately I learned I was having a carryover in that course, I started studying early to have a better grasp of what the course entailed since I had the materials that were used to teach the course.
I also wasn’t ashamed to ask for help or felt embarrassed to tell whoever I felt could help me that I failed the course. I tried as much as possible to read the notes and recordings for the missed classes and due to my nature of assimilating, I tried to create space to have enough time to read the course, regardless of my busy and tight 500-level schedules. I ensured that all my assignments were duly submitted, and I participated in the tests associated with the course, which carried an overall mark of 30 per cent out of the total score of 100 per cent for that course.
My basic study routine was never to miss any class as I am more of a visual learner. Attending lectures on time, and listening attentively in class were my magic patterns of studying as these little tricks enabled me to assimilate up to 60 per cent while in class, and the other 40 per cent were easily attained when I read on my own at home. I never used the school library during my professional years, not because the library wasn’t saturated with enough books, but because I just wouldn’t assimilate there. Instead, I prefer to read at home. Initially, I had 35 per cent, which is an F, when I first took the exam. However, when I retook the exam, I got 70 per cent, an A.
How did your parents feel when they got your final result?
My dad was the happiest; it felt like a dream come true for him, and his investments paid off. Among my siblings, I was the first to have the privilege to have a university degree for a professional course, all thanks to God and my amazing elder sister, Mrs Oluwayemisi Elkanah.
What was your greatest source of inspiration on campus?
The Holy Spirit and the longing to make my family proud by being the first to achieve this great feat were my greatest sources of inspiration on campus; all glory to God.
Which other challenges did you face during your academic journey and how did you overcome them?
Aside from the academic challenge, I also battled with some health issues. I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, which is a common medical condition that affects the stomach and intestines, also called the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms of IBS include cramping, abdominal pain, bloating, flatulence and constipation, or both. It doesn’t have any known cause or cure. Lifestyle modifications, medications, and diet could provide relief from some of the symptoms. Sometimes, I had to skip classes for doctor’s appointments or go for the scheduled tests, which were expensive and painful.
What kind of company did you keep as an undergraduate?
I kept godly friends, a lot of them. You could tell from afar that they were my people because we thought alike most of the time. If we were not talking about our studies, we were talking about how we could be more useful for God, praying, or how to influence our world for Christ. It was fun having those guys in my life as the relationships helped me avoid unnecessary distractions and always want to put extra effort into my academic work. My friends were the type that would always motivate you to read both in action and in words, and I am glad that our hard work paid off.
Pharmacy is a broad field. Are there any specific areas you are interested in focusing on?
Yes, I am passionate about community health and by God’s grace, I see myself becoming a community pharmacist as this gives me the privilege to give quality healthcare services back to my community at an affordable price. A community pharmacy is one of the health points in Nigeria where many people can reach out to a health professional before they think about going to a hospital. Being a community pharmacist gives me a platform to play a key role in allowing patients to get pharmaceutical care from the treatment to the recovery stages.
In what other ways do you see yourself contributing to the profession and Nigeria’s healthcare industry in the next five years?
I recently graduated from the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative where my team won the best project and the Nigeria-America partnership award for the year. My partner, Dr Okolo Innocent, and I founded an initiative called Project Aid Moms, which was birthed to reduce maternal mortality in rural communities by empowering traditional medical officers, who in most cases are the traditional birth attendants, with different skills to improve their services, especially in the procedures of identifying emergency cases and then referring to the nearest teaching hospitals. Although the project is in its pilot stage, it was able to directly save the lives of two pregnant women in Likosi community, Sagamu, Ogun State. They had ectopic pregnancy and fetal intrauterine demise, respectively. These conditions were detected during the free medical diagnostic outreach we had in the community. It was a situation of life and death and our timely intervention and prompt discovery of the medical emergencies allowed the immediate referrals of the women to the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Ogun State.
Now that the Carrington year is over for my cohort, I intend to use the privilege as a community pharmacist to reach out to as many communities that don’t have access to quality healthcare services, train the traditional health officers there, and ensure that they have access to quality drug services.
Credit: Punch
