By: Dr. Salihu Lukman
It was on a Saturday, 5 December 2009, that I met this young medical doctor, called Fatima Mahmud – the first child of the famous former immigration officer Alhaji Aminu Mudi of blessed memory – who had just graduated from medical school and had started her compulsory 1-year housemanship. I knew her since she was a small child, having lived in the same area in Zaria City and being distant relatives. As luck would have it, she became my wife 3 months later. We strongly share one thing in common, i.e., we would gladly go out of our way to lend a helping hand to anyone who needs our help even if it will inconvenience us or it will come at a price. This common trait in us saw us engaging in different humanitarian activities that will improve healthcare delivery and enlighten our people. This is just one of my passions, I am someone who has several interests and passions. And I thank the Almighty Allah for the gift of health, I can sleep for just 6 hours in a day and work non-stop for the remaining 18 hours, especially on things that I am passionate about.
As it was rightly said, “Charity should always begin at home”. In 2010, shortly after our wedding, we liaised with the community leaders who oversaw the Primary Healthcare Center (PHC) – located in Anguwan Alkali, Zaria City, just close to our house – that she would be freely seeing women and children every Saturday. There was nothing in the PHC at the time except the building, no doctor, no nurse, and not even basic consulting materials that a doctor would need when seeing or examining a patient. The elders in the community promised to get all the basic necessary consulting materials for her to start seeing patients but the plan never came to fruition because they could not secure the basic materials needed to examine patients. The plan was aborted.
Even before we met in December 2009, Fatima would make presentations to women in mosques and Islamic schools to enlighten them on the dangers of using some of the local aphrodisiacs known as Kayan Mata. This took place earlier in 2009 when she was in her final year of medical school. Her final year research project was on Kayan Mata titled, “KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF THE USE OF APHRODISIACS AMONG MARRIED WOMEN IN ZARIA CITY”.
Our common zeal for community service and public enlightenment led us to found the Diabetic Monitoring Forum (DMF) in November 2019. I also invited some of my friends who are medical doctors and professionals to join the DMF team. We formed 4 groups, 2 on WhatsApp for English and Hausa audiences and 2 others on Telegram also for English and Hausa audiences. I made 13 presentations on the platform on different topics affecting diabetics and proper management strategies. We responded to about 50 diabetic patients who filled out the Special Membership proforma and had over 10 success stories – both documented and undocumented – in which some patients were weaned off diabetic medications. Although I am the founder and coordinator of DMF, she was the engine room of DMF. I would ask her to answer questions on the platform, call patients at her own expense for proper guidance and monitoring of their conditions, and would always consult her on diabetic meals, management, and a host of others. After all, she is a medical doctor while I am a civil engineer. Her immense knowledge of diabetic nutrition was what helped me to successfully wean myself from using diabetic medications in 2016. After achieving the goals of DMF, I contemplated shutting down the groups but she insisted that we should not shut them down.
During the global lockdown due to COVID-19 in 2020, I learned coding from Dr. Ibraheem Dooba’s coding class for kids and went on to create my own website called salihulukman.com. Then, I created another website for her called fatimamahmud.blogspot.com where we planned that she would be blogging and presenting webinars about women’s health, i.e. obstetrics and gynecology. She started blogging but had to concentrate on her Part 1 exams for becoming a senior resident or specialist.
If I can recall correctly, this was around the same time that Dr. Naima Idris Usman from Kano, who graduated from a medical school in China in 2018, started talking about Kayan Mata and enlightening women about their potential dangers on Facebook. For her advocacy, she quickly became famous on social media and was featured in a BBC Hausa bimonthly program called Mahangar Zamani on the topic, “Mahangar Zamani Kan Kayan Mata Tare Da Madina Dahiru Maishanu” in October 2021. Dr. Naima is the founder of Girls Talk Series, a social media-based platform on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok where she shares her videos with excellent demonstrations using objects and a whiteboard. Her videos are in both Hausa and English languages.
Another prominent and passionate medical doctor who had just completed her NYSC this year and graduated from a medical school in Bahrain in 2018 also, hit the social media platforms with her interesting and enlightening videos on healthcare. Her name is Dr. Maryam Ahmad Almustapha from Bauchi. Her platforms which bear her name are available on Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, and YouTube. Her presentations are also in Hausa and English languages.
Witnessing the impacts of the enlightening videos of these 2 young passionate medical doctors on myself and many others, I saw the need to encourage the emergence of many more medical doctors especially the senior ones with a wealth of experience in the medical field – specialists, consultants, and even professors – to come and key into this noble community service for the betterment of our people. It is my conviction that the more informed we are about our health, the healthier we become.
Accordingly, I contacted Fatima if she can be making videos enlightening women specifically on her area of specialization, i.e. obstetrics and gynecology. She gladly accepted despite her tight schedule, being a wife, mother, lecturer, and currently about to sit for her Part 2 exams to become a consultant. It is indeed a sacrifice from her end, may she be rewarded beyond measure. She is the best medical doctor I have ever met and the most intelligent person I have ever seen. This is no exaggeration. She is extremely attached to all patients under her care and would do anything to ensure that they receive the best medical care. Her patient’s management philosophy is that the patient’s interest always comes first, and because of this philosophy, sometimes, she ends up having misunderstandings with her consultants in the management of patients. Ask any of her patients and she will corroborate what I said. When she worked here in Saudi Arabia, the owner of the hospital told me on several occasions that she was the best doctor in the hospital. Her passion for enlightening the public saw her making several presentions on many women’s social media-based groups as well as symposiums.
I am not unaware that someone would murmur, ‘See this guy praising one of his wives in public when he is married to 3’. Yes, I have 3 wonderful wives and each one of them is special to me. Yet, I cannot help but call a spade a spade without the intention of hurting any of my other wives. The truth of the matter is, ever since Fatima came into my life in 2009, she remained the one person who has tremendously and positively impacted my life in uncountable ways. Her positive impacts transcend beyond me to reach some of my siblings including my other 2 wives. She is a blessing to me and Allah-willing, she will be a blessing to humanity at large.
To extend our healthcare enlightenment campaigns which we started on the DMF platform, we created 4 platforms with the following addresses and called them, MEET THE OBGYN (MTO).
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drfatimamahmud
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drfatimamahmud
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drfatimamahmud
Tik-tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drfatimamahmud
In all these 4 platforms, the username is the same, i.e. drfatimamahmud. She will use Hausa as the main medium of communication so that she can reach our people who may not understand the English language. However, some presentations will be in the English language for the benefit of non-Hausa speakers. You are all invited to follow us on any of these platforms, especially Facebook and YouTube where she will be making livestream programs fortnightly. The maiden livestreaming event comes up tomorrow, Saturday at 11 AM and you can join the live program on Facebook or YouTube. See the poster below for more details. The recorded event will be available on these 2 platforms after the event for those that will not be able to join the live event. Men can also join these platforms or live events, because, they sometimes contribute toward the poor well-being of their spouses. Not every illness is medically-related, there are many illnesses out there that may appear to have medical connotations when in the real sense, they are 100 % psychological.
We are hoping to have many more medical doctors join this cause so that we can have platforms like Meet the Family Physician, Meet the Psychiatrist, Meet the Urologist, Meet the Psychologist, etc.
