I am a First Aid Trainer
When I became a medical doctor, there was no way I would have thought I would be doing what I am doing now – teaching First Aid. Who would have thought I would end up being a first aid trainer?
I love medicine, I always have. I knew I was going to be a doctor when I was 9 years old and my plan on graduating was to be a Cardiologist when I graduated over 20 years ago… a story for another day.
With my medical degree and 2 masters degrees, I forged a career in Healthcare Administration. I was an Administrator at a Kidney Foundation when I had to resign in 2011.
Leaving the medical profession
I resigned for 2 reasons. The main one was my son’s health; he had developed a condition that made him prone to medical emergencies and I wanted to be around. The other reason was the extreme sadness I felt after a child, who had a kidney transplant and we were supporting, died. I was burnt out. I stepped away totally from medicine.
Due to my son’s condition, I had to teach his teachers, in each of his successive classes, what to do if he had a medical emergency. It became obvious that there was a need for first aid training in schools. In addition, I knew that parents and caregivers needed to be prepared IF a medical emergency occurred at home, my experience as a mum had shown me this. Preparation was key.
Becoming a First Aid Trainer by going back to medicine
I had to go back to medicine.
Unfortunately, I became ill. There were a lot of tests done, lots of hospital visits, consulting different doctors in order to make a diagnosis of my condition over a long time and finally, it was recommended I travel abroad. I didn’t.
It was during this period I worked on what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it as it related to giving people the information on how to act without fear or confusion to help anyone in a medical emergency. I also wanted to do a lot of other things related to that. Health information was always a big factor in how I practiced medicine during my clinical service years. I was that doctor that nurses would knock on my consulting room door because patients were still waiting and I was spending too much time with one. 🙂
Why Levande Healthcare?
“Levande” means “alive” or “living” in Swedish. All the different services under Levande Healthcare are aimed at providing the knowledge, skills and tools to help people #StayAlive – sale of first aid boxes & kits, first aid trainings and sale of evacuation equipment by TETCON and more that we hope to do.
I worked on setting up Levande while still ill and it was definitely my motivation for getting better! We opened for business in late 2016 and nearly 6 years on, there is still so much work to do especially on raising through awareness of Nigerians on emergency preparedness.
Circumstances (that I did not foresee in my wildest dreams!) have made it that I teach first aid now and all that it comes with and I am loving every minute. 🙂
Dr. Oluwatosin Osikoya is the Founder of Levande Healthcare Company. With over 24 years in the healthcare industry, she lives by the adages “Prevention is better than cure” and “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail“. She has been training on First Aid since 2016.
Email: tosin(at)firstaidbylevande.com.ng
