Dr. Anthony Obiora Onwualu is a board-certified general medical doctor in Nigeria and Ukraine. He started his website medician.io to enable non-health personnel access simple, candid, accurate, and exciting health wellness advice and tips.
Dr. Anthony studied at the Zaporizhzhia State Medical University in Ukraine, where he gained his physician of medicine degree. He returned to Nigeria in 2013, where he did his medical internship at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, and his National Youth Corp Service.
He began his career in December 2017 at Faleti Medical Center. As a new doctor practicing in Nigeria and a less developed area in Lagos (Ajegunle), life comes at you quickly. It quickly dawned on me that practicing medicine in Nigeria was nothing like in Ukraine.
As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a medical doctor. I enjoyed quizzes and puzzles and I loved comic books- I still read them to this day. I had many medical toys, stethoscopes, and pictorials (come to think of it, it’s like I was programmed to study medicine (Oh well). I loved reading comic books and imagining I would be the hero rescuing people from villains. I have always subconsciously wanted to help people in one form or another. Even my traditional name, “OBIORA,” translates to “heart of the people.” Practicing medicine in Nigeria is very different from what you see on tv or what you would imagine it to be like. This is especially true for a country where more than 80% of its citizens live below one dollar a day.
My first trying moment as a medical doctor came on one typical routine day in the form of a long, deep cut inflicted by a matchet on a young man. The man was high on some substances. This happened as a result of two rival gangs clashing over a woman.
He was rolled into the minor surgery room, and I was called to assess the situation. I walked in and stood there, looking in utter disbelief and fear. I had never seen so much blood in my life in one place. I stood there in shock and froze on the spot while the nurses were prepping for suturing. I just stood there. You can imagine a 6ft 2, 95kg of muscle and some fat man in gloves, just standing there like a statue! While I was frozen in the theatre, the fellow gang members of the trauma victim were threatening to kill us all and burn down the hospital if we didn’t save their friend. Talk about motivation.
It wasn’t until the senior nurse shouted at me, “doctor oya ooh, you want make this pikin die!” that I snapped out of my daze and immediately got to work. That was the defining moment for me. I swung into action, all my medical training coming to the forefront of my brain. While attending to this bleeding patient, the surge of adrenaline coursing through me was something else, and I LOVED it.
It took me at least 4 hours to suture to close up his wound with the help and guidance of the senior nurses (May God continue to bless them). From that day, I was a machine. I started doing extra shifts to improve my suturing and minor surgical skills and read and practiced almost daily. Faleti Medical Center was a bedrock foundation for me because I saw a lot of trauma-related injuries. This improved my skills and the confidence to trust in my knowledge and skills when approaching a problem or trying to reach a diagnosis.
After two and a half years at Faleti medical center, I started a new chapter at Africa’s Young Entrepreneurs. This is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to create entrepreneurs worldwide. They had just launched a telehealth platform that allowed all their members to get free medical advice via text, calls, or video chat. This was my first real taste of digital health and blogging. I wrote articles for their blog while also running the virtual health platform. This helped me discover my love for writing. Sadly, after a vehicle accident, I had to leave.
After some months of physiotherapy, I started walking fully and got employment at AHNI (Achieving Health Nigeria Initiative). This was where I started advancing my knowledge on HIV treatment protocols, testing protocols, follow-up checkups, calls, and conducting medical and educational outreaches in the deepest ghettos of Lagos. This exposed me to the number of people living with HIV in Nigeria and the lack of government support in education and treatment. I learned much from instructors from organizations like USAID, FHI 360, SFH, PEPFAR, and KNCV. And just like that, the COVID-19 pandemic came in, and all contracts were canceled. Everyone was ordered to stay at home, and people left Nigeria for their respective countries. While other countries were pulling out all the stops to make it easy for patients to receive treatment and make remuneration better, the Nigerian government kept hazard pay at 12 dollars- this was the same hazard pay during the Ebola Pandemic. There was a severe lack of Personal Protective Equipment, doctors being harassed by police officers, and no welfare was put in place. This made me wash my hands of public service.
How I Became a Covid 19 Protocol Officer
A former patient I knew through my medical concierge service I had started in 2019 showed me a job application. I applied for and was made an offer. This was how I started at my current place of work and became the Covid 19 protocol officer. I set up the company isolation centers and wrote the SOP for the care and treatment of Covid 19 patients. We also took more steps with our expatriate workers as our Nigerian workers seemed to have more resistance to the Covid 19 virus.
My Blogging Journey-How ‘The Medician’ Was Born
The COVID-19 pandemic and the declining state of the Nigerian economy made me seek out other sources of income because it was getting tough to keep up with bills. So, I started researching, which is how I started my blogging journey. One channel that helped me out was H-EDUCATE on YouTube. This channel changed my life. It has a playlist called “BUILD AN ONLINE BUSINESS WITH ME FROM SCRATCH.” The creator shows you everything you need to know about building an online business from scratch, and I mean everything. After following all the lectures, in February 2022, The Medician was born. My main goal is to educate and demystify health for my readers. I want people to be able to read, assimilate and enjoy all the content we put out. We focus on creating specific sub-niche content in health and fitness that you may not find anywhere else. You only get it from your family doctor or a friend who has gone through that experience, or you just want to understand medical information; our website offers you that experience.
Patient education on simple, common ailments is next to zero in Nigeria. Some health officials never take the time to explain the disease process to patients, or explaining it may be too complicated. This is why I want to use my platform as much as possible to educate the average reader.
Major Challenges
One of the major challenges I face is time. I still work a full-time job- 6 days a week- and manage my concierge service business and social media content. Another major challenge is internet affordability. Pricing plans in Nigeria are expensive and unreliable in the least. Then, coupled with the issue of little or no electricity, having to buy a diesel generator, fueling the generator, solar panels, and inverters just to have some semblance of steady electricity is challenging. Due to the current exodus of Nigerian Doctors and Nurses leaving the country in search of greener pastures (READ HERE), getting a second opinion from a qualified health professional is something every patient should seek. This is one of the reasons my blog is here to help. Searching for topics and reading in plain language go a long way in alleviating people’s fears.
Patient trust in doctors and nurses is at an all-time low. You hear stories that send shivers down your spine (READ HERE). Some patients prefer visiting herbalists to see doctors due to their past experiences. Our Platform is there to help with that challenge; we write and give tips on orthodox and ayurvedic healing practices.
Let us not forget that the health, fitness, and wellness niche is already oversaturated, so to rank well, you have to put out amazing content, which takes research. Some other crippling challenges placed by the government include;
· International spending limit of 20 dollars a day. There are so many things you cannot subscribe to or buy.
· The terrible exchange rate of the dollar to naira #620 = 1 dollar
· Heavy insecurity; you could be robbed or kidnapped anytime in broad daylight.
I could go on and on, but the truth is no matter the challenges, you just have to find a way to operate and survive.
Biggest Opportunities
One of the biggest advantages of blogging is that you are creating a personal brand, an authority on something you are infinitely good at. Therefore, you are more than likely to keep pushing; as you evolve, so does your brand and business practices. There is no limit to the content I can provide in my niche, which gives me peace of mind because I can create an entire series of posts on the female anatomy, conditions associated with parts of the anatomy, tips, and tricks, and how-to guides, etc. There is so much that people are searching for that these opportunities can help you monetize your blog. Affiliate marketing, Ad revenue, and guest blogging are all massive opportunities to monetize and have passive income for life.
Advice to Other Businesses
If you have an idea, just start. Don’t wait around, don’t continue reading all the articles and watching videos, without taking action. Entrepreneurship is not pretty; forget what you see on tv and social media. You will face severe challenges and get frustrated. In the beginning, you are the CEO, manager, intern, coffee boy, janitor, and messenger. All these will make you level up. Some of my articles have had me up all night, having just 2 hours of sleep before I resume work (Thank God for Coca-Cola).
One of the practices that has helped me keep time and plan my days is time-boxing. Everyone should give it a try. Also, one good piece of advice I have received from a mentor is that “forget happiness and chase purpose.” The purpose will keep you going when happiness is nowhere to be found. If you do decide to go into blogging, treat it as a business, not a hobby. Discipline yourself to do the thing that needs to be done.
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