Everybody in Ghana is an eye doctor. Except me, apparently.

I spent years at the University of Cape Coast learning how the human eye works. Lenses. Retinas. Refraction. Big books with small letters — which, looking back, was the university testing us before we even started.

Then I opened my practice and discovered that every Ghanaian already has a degree in optometry. Theirs came from WhatsApp.

The consultation

A man walks in. I ask him what the problem is.

"Doctor, my right eye has been jumping since Tuesday. My mother says it means somebody is talking about me."

I examine him. The eye is tired. He's been staring at his phone until 2am. I tell him this.

He nods slowly, the way you nod at a pastor whose sermon has gone on too long. Then he says:

"So who is talking about me?"

Chale, I am an optometrist, not a prophet. If I could see who is talking about you, I would charge more.

The second opinion

Every patient in Ghana comes with a second opinion already loaded. It's usually from:

• An auntie who "also had this thing"
• A video of a white man in a lab coat, forwarded 400 times
• The pastor, who laid hands on the eye and is now waiting to see if I'll take the credit

One woman told me she had been treating her red eye with breast milk. Not her own. Her neighbour's. I had so many questions, and not one of them was medical.

The prescription

When I finally prescribe glasses, the real negotiation begins.

"Doctor, can you make them without the frame? It makes me look old."

Madam, glasses without the frame are called nothing. You are asking me to prescribe you air.

But I love them. Every single one. Because every Monday they give me material for Friday — and they never, ever suspect it's about them.

If you're my patient and you're reading this: no. It's not about you.

It's about your neighbour's breast milk.