#BTColumn – Millennial Doctors: Dr Shanice Nightengale

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.

by Jade Gibbons

“I am dark-skinned with 4AB natural hair. I have a wide nose, full lips and big eyes. I have wide hips. My melanin is popping. I am a medical doctor currently doing over my internship in St. Lucia. I did an internship in Cuba and now I’m doing another one in English at Owen King European Union Hospital. I have an MD.

At UWI, they do MBBS which is slightly below the level of MD because we do internships as part of our medical training while with the MBBS, they complete Med School and then they do internship.

Currently I am in a long distance relationship with a gentleman, Mr. Kyle Browne who is a known volleyball player. I’m very sweet and kind. People may mock it sometimes because I have manners. When they call my name, and I answer, ‘yes please.’

I don’t know if it is a culture thing, that other cultures don’t really value manners like how we value it in Barbados. You know, being polite when you answer a question or being kind to somebody who is not giving you a kind vibe.

At the beginning of 2019, I was finishing my internship in Cuba so I don’t know if I had hobbies. I would go to the gym a lot to take my mind off the seeming impending doom of exams. Adventure for me in 2019 was travelling across Cuba to see the different provinces and seeing my friends in different places, exploring where they live.

In Cuba, I like Holguin which is the province next to where I was. I like Holguin because a lot of my friends were there. They had a lot more supplies than we had where I was. When I first learnt that COVID-19 spread outside of China, my thoughts as a doctor went to if we are going to have enough medical resources to handle it? How are we going to protect the people that have comorbidities? As a Caribbean person I was wondering if we would eventually unite and work together somehow to try to combat this.

In my eyes that was the only way we could really handle it. As a woman, I didn’t really think about it to be honest. I didn’t really think about how COVID-19 would affect me or someone of my gender.

When I started to work in St. Lucia, we were already doing COVID-19 protocols. I moved to St. Lucia in August 2020. It is very different for us in Barbados than it is for the people in St. Lucia because they have privatised healthcare so they have to pay for everything.

For me, this is a new thing because in Cuba you don’t have to pay for anything. In Barbados, some things you pay for if you go to a private doctor. In St. Lucia, everything you have to pay for. In Cuba, you have minor racism sometimes. You have sexism there.

You don’t get treated the same because you are a female doctor. You get treated differently, where I was, if you are black, sometimes. You get treated differently if you are a foreigner. It’s like you have three strikes against you. You are foreign. You are black. You are a female.

I like how their healthcare system is set up in terms of how they take care of their people. They try to reduce the risk of a person getting a disease from the very beginning which is different from other Caribbean islands. We mostly deal with when the person has the disease.

We try to prevent complications. In Cuba, they try to get to the problem before there is a problem. Working in Barbados, I was working at an offshore medical school called Bridgetown International University because Barbados doesn’t acknowledge my medical degree.

It is run by people from India. I liked being home with my accent again. Working with Indians, it was like going from culture shock to culture shock to culture shock. You have to adjust to the students’ mannerisms and how they handle things and their perceptions of their reality.

No, I do not want to have children. It terrifies me to bring someone into all of this chaos. Human beings are destroying the planet. We don’t seem to want to help each other. The little people that are trying to help each other don’t have enough support to actually make a big difference.

I don’t know if my heart would be able to handle something happening to one of my children, if I have any. Plus I have seen childbirth. I have no problem helping women to bring life into the world.

But when you see the stuff that happens to your undercarriage, you might rethink it as well. If it happens, I won’t object. I’m not an abortion person. If I get pregnant it happened. It happened. It happened, that’s life.

To leave a legacy to any progeny I may have, that is how I view life. As a way to leave a legacy for those coming behind me, helping to make a clearer path for people who may need it. I would like to be a person my niece can be proud of. My niece is the greatest thing in the world right now.

She is all the light. Her name is Shalisia Daniella Nightengale. She’s named after me. My middle name is Daniella and hers is Daniella. She has the same initials as me, SDN. She’s going to do amazing things.”

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making. See https://www.jadegibbons246.com