Health & Medicine
A Mother's Account of Medical Negligence and Loss in Lagos
A Nigerian author describes the death of her young son following what she characterizes as criminal negligence by an anesthesiologist during routine procedures at a Lagos hospital. The piece details lapses in monitoring and protocol that she argues led directly to her child's death, and raises questions about institutional accountability.
The Untold Story of Women Living with Epilepsy in Cameroon
This piece documents the compounded vulnerability of women and girls living with epilepsy in Cameroon, who face both medical stigma and systematic sexual exploitation. Through testimony and analysis, it exposes how deep misconceptions about epilepsy—framed as contagion or spiritual curse—render these women targets for deception, abandonment, and exclusion from protection and opportunity.
SUDEP: The Silent Killer
Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) is a rare but fatal condition that claims the lives of people with epilepsy, often during sleep, with no apparent cause. While famous cases have brought visibility to the condition, countless others die unwitnessed; the underlying mechanisms remain unclear, though seizure-related cardiac and respiratory failures are suspected.
A Doctor's Counsel on Cancer Screening: Chadwick Boseman's Death and the Rise of Early Disease in Young Cameroonians
Following actor Chadwick Boseman's death from colon cancer at 43, a Cameroonian physician uses the moment to educate young men on warning signs often mistaken for minor ailments, the availability and cost of colonoscopy screening in Cameroon, and the particular vulnerability of Black populations to colorectal cancer.
Feminising Healthcare: Four Reasons Why It Serves Universal Health Coverage
A physician argues that centering women's health, leadership, economic power, and decision-making authority is not ideological but pragmatic—a necessary framework for achieving universal health coverage across Africa. The writer draws on personal experience and systemic observation to show how gender equity in healthcare directly improves outcomes and health system resilience.
Why Feminism Matters for Universal Healthcare in Africa
A Cameroonian physician argues that achieving universal health coverage across Africa requires centering women's health, leadership, economic power, and decision-making authority—not as a peripheral concern, but as a structural necessity rooted in feminist principles of equality and rights.
Stigma and Silence: Epilepsy in Cameroon
A public health worker reflects on fieldwork with persons with epilepsy in Cameroon, documenting the severe social stigma—particularly against women—that compounds the medical burden of the condition. The piece asks why neurological disorder carries such different moral weight than other chronic illnesses, and calls for compassion over judgment.
I Have Epilepsy, But It Is Not My Social Identity
A medical professional and epilepsy advocate examines the gap between the neurological reality of epilepsy and the social stigma that surrounds it in Africa, where the condition is widely attributed to witchcraft, demonic possession, or curses rather than understood as a treatable brain disorder. The piece centers on how this stigma—particularly acute for women—becomes a social identity imposed from outside, with profound psychological and material consequences.
The Gravity We Cannot Afford: COVID-19 and the Limits of Prevention in Cameroon
Written in April 2020 as the pandemic reached Cameroon, this essay argues that standard public health measures—social distancing and confinement—are structurally incompatible with how African societies, and Cameroon in particular, are organized economically and culturally. The writer contends that without material support and systemic change, preventive measures will fail because survival itself takes precedence.
How Long Are We Going to Stay Indoors? Economic Resilience and Pandemic Duration
Written in early April 2020, this piece examines whether modern societies can sustain the social distancing necessary to control a pandemic comparable to the 1918 influenza. The writer argues that while historical evidence shows social distancing reduces deaths, our interconnected global economy makes prolonged lockdown psychologically and financially unsustainable—and calls for structural economic redesign to prepare for future pandemics.
Infertility and the Silence We Inherit
A physician's essay on infertility—its medical realities, its prevalence, and the social cruelty of intrusive questioning. The piece uses a domestic scene to illustrate how cultural pressure compounds medical struggle, and closes with a direct call for empathy.
The Untold Realities of Back-to-Back Child Delivery
A candid exploration of the physical, emotional, financial, and mental toll of bearing children fewer than 18 months apart—a common practice in Cameroon driven by late marriage, career timing, and family pressure. The writer outlines four core realities mothers face: the overwhelming practical demands, the risk of neglecting the older child's emotional needs, the necessity of building a support system, and the loss of personal life to routine.
The Luxury I Could Not Afford: Depression and Single Motherhood
A single mother recounts her battle with depression and post-natal grief following a friend's suicide, and how the responsibility of caring for her daughter became both her greatest burden and her anchor to survival. She reflects on the impossible choice between breaking down and pushing through, and ultimately channels her experience into founding the Young Mothers Initiative.
Her Vagina Does Not Define Her
A direct, anatomically grounded refutation of the myth that frequent sexual activity causes vaginal looseness. The piece provides baseline facts about vaginal anatomy—shape, colour, size, odour—and explains the actual physiological factors (age, childbirth, hormonal shifts) that affect vaginal elasticity, positioning bodily knowledge as an antidote to shame and misogyny.
There is no health without mental health
A direct examination of mental health's absence from Cameroon's public health conversation, showing how cultural explanations—witchcraft, generational curses, divine punishment—have crowded out clinical understanding and left patients isolated. The piece frames mental health as both a human rights crisis and an economic one, and outlines concrete work underway to shift the conversation.
Understanding Anorexia Nervosa: Causes, Signs, and a Path to Recovery
This essay examines anorexia nervosa in detail—its psychological and social causes, the constellation of physical and mental symptoms sufferers experience, and concrete steps toward healing. It emphasizes that recovery is slow and that prevention requires rejecting fat-shaming and harmful weight-loss tactics.
Corona Virus: Spread Information, Not Panic
Written in early March 2020 as COVID-19 began circulating globally, this post challenges what the writer sees as reckless fear-mongering by medical professionals in Cameroon. By presenting case fatality rates, severity breakdowns, and age-stratified mortality data, the writer argues for calm, evidence-based communication and correct public health guidance.
Four Good Reasons Why Feminising Healthcare Can Help Achieve Universal Health Coverage
The writer, a practising physician in Cameroon, argues that gender equality and women's empowerment are essential tools for achieving universal health coverage in Africa. Drawing on personal experience—from societal pressure against a medical career to clinical moments where women's decision-making authority is overridden—she identifies four intersecting domains: women's health outcomes, women's leadership in healthcare systems, economic justice, and equitable decision-making power.
Myths About Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies
A clear-eyed breakdown of common misconceptions among young Cameroonians about emergency contraception, distinguishing between folk methods that do not work and evidence-based approaches like morning-after pills and douching.
Pepper as Medicine: A User's Guide to Capsaicin and Health
This piece surveys the health benefits of pepper—from pain relief and metabolism boost to safer pregnancy outcomes—grounded in the compound capsaicin and its effects on the body. It also offers practical remedies for the burn itself.
Your Emotions Are More Important Than You Think
This reflective essay argues that emotional awareness and expression are essential to human flourishing, not signs of weakness. Through personal anecdotes—a toxic relationship, unrequited attraction, and self-discovery—the writer demonstrates how facing difficult emotions leads to growth, authentic connection, and better choices.
The Physics and Perils of Penile Fracture: A Clinical Note
A straightforward medical explainer on penile fracture—a real urological injury caused by blunt force to an erect penis—covering its anatomy, mechanisms, warning signs, and the sexual positions and acts most likely to precipitate it.
Swollen Feet in Pregnancy: When Normal Changes Warrant Medical Attention
Pedal edema—swelling of the feet and lower legs—is common in pregnancy, caused primarily by increased blood volume and gravitational pooling. However, the writer distinguishes between benign causes and serious conditions like preeclampsia and deep vein thrombosis that require immediate medical evaluation.
Penis Captivus: Medical Fact and Urban Legend
A humorous exploration of penis captivus—the rare physical phenomenon in which penile engorgement and involuntary vaginal muscle contraction temporarily prevent withdrawal during intercourse—and its cultural standing as a supposed instrument of witchcraft against unfaithful partners.
On the Bodily Consequences of Restraint: Holding In and Letting Go
A medical explainer examines the health effects of holding in urine and flatulence, moving from the serious (urinary tract infections, kidney stones, bladder dysfunction) to the comic (the social mortification of an ill-timed noise). The piece concludes that occasional restraint is harmless, but chronic suppression invites mild to moderate bodily trouble.
Moon Face and Pot Belly: Understanding Weight Distribution and Metabolism
This piece examines why adults—particularly men as they gain financial stability or marry—develop facial roundness and abdominal weight gain, and offers practical guidance on diet and exercise. It debunks the myth of spot fat reduction and emphasizes that sustainable body composition change requires systemic caloric deficit and consistent training.
On Virginity Testing in Cameroon: Why Bleeding Is Not Proof
This post examines the cultural belief that bleeding during first intercourse proves virginity, establishing through medical fact that the hymen's condition has no reliable connection to sexual history. The writer argues that virginity testing—whether cultural or clinical—is both scientifically baseless and ethically harmful.
The Fundamentals of Weight Loss: Exercise, Diet, and Realistic Expectations
A practical guide to weight loss grounded in the caloric deficit principle, outlining cardio and strength training protocols, dietary strategies from hydration to intermittent fasting, and the necessity of sustainable habit change over quick fixes.
Melissa Ndip's Letter to Her Unborn Daughter
Written for Poise's first writing challenge, this letter from Melissa Ndip—a early contributor who died of sickle cell complications days after publication—offers her daughter five lessons on life: that beauty exists within hardship, that integrity matters more than others' approval, that faith is inseparable from ambition, that dreams require explicit planning and persistence, and that untapped potential lives in every person.
Is Plastic Food Packaging Safe? A Practical Assessment
The post examines the health risks posed by chemicals like phthalates and BPA in plastic food packaging, particularly when heated, and considers what individuals and governments can do to mitigate exposure. It concludes that ceramic and glass alternatives are preferable where feasible.
How to Spot a Weight-Loss Scam
The writer examines the structural deceptions embedded in the weight-loss industry, identifying three hallmarks of fraudulent products: promises that defy basic physiology, emotionally manipulative marketing language, and false claims about spot fat reduction. The piece argues that legitimate weight loss requires sustained effort, and any product suggesting otherwise is designed to exploit desire rather than deliver results.
Bitter Kola and Guinness: A Medical Enquiry Into Popular Belief
Drawing on pharmacology and Cameroonian folk wisdom, the writer examines whether bitter kola and alcohol—particularly Guinness—can delay ejaculation. The piece distinguishes between what science can confirm, what remains unproven, and what rests on anecdote, concluding with measured caution.
Myths About Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies
A medical doctor addresses widespread misconceptions among young Cameroonians about emergency contraception, distinguishing folk remedies and ineffective practices from evidence-based methods. The piece explains the biological requirements for pregnancy prevention and recommends the combination of douching and morning-after pills as a reliable approach.
Mental Health in the Age of Disconnection
On Mental Health Awareness Week, Poise observes that despite material progress, suicide rates exceed war deaths globally, while social media amplifies young people's dissatisfaction. In Cameroon specifically, stigma and cultural taboos prevent open conversation about mental illness, leaving sufferers isolated.
Tramadol and the Opioid Paradox in Cameroon
A medical perspective on tramadol abuse in Cameroon, situating it within a broader landscape of substance misuse among young adults while arguing for controlled prescription protocols rather than outright prohibition. The writer identifies tramadol as a 'necessary evil'—essential for pain management yet vulnerable to abuse—and proposes a harm-mitigation framework centered on doctor-only dispensation and vendor accountability.