It’s in the morning, a sunny good morning, it has been raining for a quite a few days. A young man entered the pharmacy and asked if we had electronic cigarettes, we didn’t have them and they were nowhere to be found in Kigali. He then asked what I can advise for smoking cessation.

It was my third day in the pharmacy doing my first ever internship. I have been, for those days, struggling to memorize all medicines, quickly locate them in shelves and being able to offer proper medicine information and patient counselling, the latter is a practice we rarely do or learn in class.

All other workers in the pharmacy were women. Being the only male, the gentleman felt more comfortable to discuss with me about ways to stop smoking. He must never had taken a look at my badge to see that I’m just an intern, it was so much confidence for me to deal with. Continue reading →