Pampering Patients, Doctors, and Patience
The patient-and-doctor relationship continues to elicit conversation in another context. One study suggests that doctors who are patient with their patients are not likely to get sued even if they are incompetent. It seems that you are better at listening to your patients because they live in their bodies, and you have to be careful that your expertise does not lead you to dictatorship and arrogance, and arrogance leads to abuse. Further, that abuse does not lead to lawsuits. The relationship between authors and ideas can be similar; if you are patient with your ideas, you may benefit from them and not get kicked out or cheated by ideas. I have seen patients (ideas) fire their doctors(authors) because they will not follow the lead of the patient (idea) to know what they are trying to say. It seems that the materials you are working with have a voice of their own, so let them speak. Don't impose your opinion on your data. Allow your idea, the agency, to lead you to the truth. Don't be hasty with the conclusion. Thunder may not need to fire you; your ideas or the material you work with can fire or hire you. By the way, it seems African celebrity studies don hire me; I will avoid getting fired by it as I explore the field. Any contrary steps to this might amount to scholarly misconduct to misappropriation.
Along those lines, in one of my eavesdropping adventures on my parent communication(judge me o), I overheard Mum telling Baami "omo re, ko mu agbo ile tutu, agbo jedi ati gbogbo nkan to ye ko mu". Now, if you don't know these traditional medicines often hung over the kitchen, you don't have the right to call me ajebutter. My Dad responded, "oro Adunni o gba fire brigade, logic and pampering lo gba, bami pe wa". Follow my Dad's advice "oro research kogba agidi, logic, suru, and pampering logba. Beyond the similarity between ideas and author that the patients and doctor analogy gives, it also extends to the author's relationship with journals. If you want the best from your doctor's expertise, follow your doctor's prescription in detail in the way you follow journal instructions to authors. Don't submit 6000 words when they tell you 2000 words. You must drink omi suru when peer review takes longer than journal metrics say average. If the relationship between you and your doctor is not productive, change the doctor or your patient. My mother says "wa woran o gbodo ku si agbo, woko woko osi gbodo ku si ile ale"
My latest patient is now published in the Journal of Cultural Research titled "When Charity and Camera collide?: Nigerian Celebrity Philanthropy in the Age of Technology"
I am going to work on my next patient.
Posted on Facebook on January 5, 2023
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