BLOG: More than a vocation | How Master of Family Medicine reshaped my journey

Ian Kibet | Master of Family Medicine student

Two years ago, when I enrolled in MFM, I would have hardly thought it would have had such a profound impact on my personal growth. Having worked in a Kenyan hospital with a few family doctors, I had a reasonable expectation of what studying family medicine would entail. But as I started this adventure, I realized that MFM was not just reshaping how I viewed the specialty but also changing my professional and personal identity. I am thus very grateful for the opportunity to walk this journey. 

I applied for the Master of Family Medicine course during a challenging first year as a qualified doctor. Having worked under skilled doctors during most of my training, I quickly realized how hard it was to make key clinical decisions and manage different hospital departments on my own. So discouraging was my start to my medical profession that I almost shied away from applying for the course entirely.

But thankfully, I did not, because MFM slowly changed the way I saw and approached these challenges. Developing my reflection skills restructured the way I viewed many clinical challenges, not as hindrances but as opportunities to learn and grow. And with time, I learnt the art of not only working but also thriving under pressure. As a result of this, I have found myself best connected to my purpose and passion in such seasons of struggle, such as during healthcare strikes or under high work expectations. Additionally, the structured approach to looking for and evaluating evidence that I learnt has helped me develop confidence when making key decisions for my patients.  This has consequently made me a confident clinician for my patients, and to my supervisors, colleagues, and mentees alike.

Having worked in a mission hospital with many family doctors before starting MFM, I viewed family medicine from a large local lens, which focuses on filling in gaps from other specialists in secondary and tertiary hospitals. But the principles I learnt from MFM greatly helped me understand the principles that made the specialty unique, many of which are yet to be implemented in my setting. I began to understand a family doctor as a clinician interested in sharing the lives of patients, developing long-term relationships with them, and offering care centered on them. Understanding the role of family medicine in primary healthcare helped me realize how transformative it could be to our healthcare system, and this made me a passionate advocate for the specialty and primary healthcare in my country. 

Practicing as a generalist in Africa has had many challenges. In a field where doctors are expected to have specialist-level knowledge across all fields to fill in gaps from insufficient consultants, practicing family medicine has sometimes felt like swimming in an ocean. But even though this threatens to obscure professional identity, MFM has helped me to make a unique impact wherever I have found myself. Whether in leading clinical teams in the wards, writing blogs and research projects, or developing networks in conferences, I have developed an understanding of who I am, and I let it reflect on the work I do.

Family medicine became an ethos that defines my identity, perhaps more than my vocation. This is the ethos that made Dr Clive Irvine leave Scotland over 100 years ago to build a health center in Chogoria, Kenya, and share his life with natives he had very little in common with. And over 100 years later, this ethos made me leave that same hospital in Chogoria and fly to Scotland for Summer School teachings led by distinguished family doctors such as Professor Scott Murray.