Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Published Ahead of Print
    • Archive
    • Supplemental Issues
    • Collections - French
    • Collections - English
  • Info for
    • Authors & Reviewers
    • Submit a Manuscript
    • Advertisers
    • Careers & Locums
    • Subscribers
    • Permissions
  • About CFP
    • About CFP
    • About the CFPC
    • Editorial Advisory Board
    • Terms of Use
    • Contact Us
  • Feedback
    • Feedback
    • Rapid Responses
    • Most Read
    • Most Cited
    • Email Alerts
  • Blogs
    • Latest Blogs
    • Blog Guidelines
    • Directives pour les blogues
  • Mainpro+ Credits
    • About Mainpro+
    • Member Login
    • Instructions
  • Other Publications
    • http://www.cfpc.ca/Canadianfamilyphysician/
    • https://www.cfpc.ca/Login/
    • Careers and Locums

User menu

  • My alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
The College of Family Physicians of Canada
  • Other Publications
    • http://www.cfpc.ca/Canadianfamilyphysician/
    • https://www.cfpc.ca/Login/
    • Careers and Locums
  • My alerts
The College of Family Physicians of Canada

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Published Ahead of Print
    • Archive
    • Supplemental Issues
    • Collections - French
    • Collections - English
  • Info for
    • Authors & Reviewers
    • Submit a Manuscript
    • Advertisers
    • Careers & Locums
    • Subscribers
    • Permissions
  • About CFP
    • About CFP
    • About the CFPC
    • Editorial Advisory Board
    • Terms of Use
    • Contact Us
  • Feedback
    • Feedback
    • Rapid Responses
    • Most Read
    • Most Cited
    • Email Alerts
  • Blogs
    • Latest Blogs
    • Blog Guidelines
    • Directives pour les blogues
  • Mainpro+ Credits
    • About Mainpro+
    • Member Login
    • Instructions
  • RSS feeds
  • Follow cfp Template on Twitter
OtherCommentary

Dr Olurin MD CCFP(EM)

Shane Neilson
Canadian Family Physician August 2012, 58 (8) ihc;
Shane Neilson
Erin, Ont
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • eLetters
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

A backward hop: as a girl, Dr Olubunmi Olurin attends the Federal Government Girl’s College in Akure, Nigeria. In her high school dormitory was an asthmatic girl. This asthma was poorly controlled; Olubunmi often accompanied the girl to the school clinic where a nurse administered salbutamol tablets. If the tablets didn’t help, the patient was transferred to a distant hospital.

Olubunmi sits up at night as the girl rasps and wheezes, the sound keeping the entire dormitory awake. But fear keeps the other students awake too: Olubunmi thinks the girl will die with the onset of each relentless attack because Olubunmi has seen the girl desperately out of breath many times before—and especially at night. The threat of the girl’s death is constant and Olubunmi thinks, while watching the nurse auscult her friend’s chest, that she will one day learn why her friend can’t breathe. Olubunmi feels that once she knows why, she will possess the information necessary to help her friend.

She attends university in Ibadan, Nigeria. She becomes a physician. She comes to Newfoundland with her husband and settles in Botwood.

A skip forward: several years into practice in Canada she is called to see an emergency patient in the clinic. A 68-year-old woman is short of breath. The woman has recently been admitted to a senior’s home, arriving from the West Coast to be nearer to her daughter. The woman has a long history of asthma and had neglected to use her fluticasone inhaler during the move to Botwood. This history is provided by the daughter, not the patient, because the patient can’t speak. The patient’s breathing is fast and shallow and Dr Olurin can’t auscult breath sounds in the chest.

Dr Olurin treats the patient with intravenous methylprednisolone and serial salbutamol nebulizers. Within a few hours the patient’s breathing returns to normal and she is seen happily talking with her relieved daughter. The patient is discharged back to the senior’s home with a prescription for inhaled steroids, a short course of oral steroids, and a rescue inhaler.

A sideways jump: after obtaining her medical degree in Nigeria and working for a few months as a doctor she becomes responsible for a patient with metastatic endometrial cancer. This patient develops low white blood cell and low red blood cell counts. Dr Olurin consults with a hematologist who mentored her in medical school. This hematologist is renowned for her extraordinary efforts in making patients comfortable at the end of their lives. The hematologist accepts the patient in transfer and then attempts therapies to ameliorate the patient’s condition; she knows the patient will die but tries what she can with the hope that a difference can be made. The patient dies a few weeks later.

A young woman wants to become a doctor to help people; she becomes a doctor and helps people because of her knowledge; she watches a senior doctor with greater knowledge meet the limits of what can be helped.

Footnotes

  • Cover photo: Ned Pratt, St John’s, Nfld

  • Story: Shane Neilson md ccfp, Erin, Ont

  • Additional photos and the French translation of the story appear on page 896.

  • D’autres photos et la traduction en français du récit se trouvent à la page 896.

  • Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Canadian Family Physician: 58 (8)
Canadian Family Physician
Vol. 58, Issue 8
1 Aug 2012
  • Table of Contents
  • About the Cover
  • Index by author
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on The College of Family Physicians of Canada.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Dr Olurin MD CCFP(EM)
(Your Name) has sent you a message from The College of Family Physicians of Canada
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the The College of Family Physicians of Canada web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Dr Olurin MD CCFP(EM)
Shane Neilson
Canadian Family Physician Aug 2012, 58 (8) ihc;

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Respond to this article
Share
Dr Olurin MD CCFP(EM)
Shane Neilson
Canadian Family Physician Aug 2012, 58 (8) ihc;
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Footnotes
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • Olubunmi Olurin MD CCFP
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

Commentary

  • Widespread misconceptions about pregnancy for women living with obesity
  • Social prescribing
  • Systemic racism and health disparities
Show more Commentary

The faces of family medicine

  • The Faces of Family Medicine 2011–2015
  • Jennifer Whelan MB BCh BAO CCFP
  • Edward Tsoi MB BCh BAO MRCP(UK) FCFP
Show more The faces of family medicine

Similar Articles

Navigate

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
  • Collections - English
  • Collections - Française

For Authors

  • Authors and Reviewers
  • Submit a Manuscript
  • Permissions
  • Terms of Use

General Information

  • About CFP
  • About the CFPC
  • Advertisers
  • Careers & Locums
  • Editorial Advisory Board
  • Subscribers

Journal Services

  • Email Alerts
  • Twitter
  • RSS Feeds

Copyright © 2021 by The College of Family Physicians of Canada

Powered by HighWire