Call a doctor, call a lawyer!

One morning inside the little medical laboratory, a freewheeling debate on issues of health and lifestyle heats up. 

As the clock ticks and more work piles up in his domain, the diminutive man brusquely cuts short contrary opinion with the final word: "I'm a doctor and I know these things". With that, he sees his visitors out and turns to his array of microscopes and samples awaiting analysis. 

The same afternoon, he settles down in his office in another part of the city, arranging his gown, wig and voluminous tomes on arrival from the law courts. 

This time, the debate is on the stalled constitution review process. And it's not long before he declares with finality: "I'm a lawyer and I know these things."

Meet Dr Peter Kiama Wangai. 

At 34, Wangai holds Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Law degrees, both from the University of Nairobi. He has also completed a Masters degree in law from the University of South Africa and has just been admitted as an advocate of the High Court of Kenya. 

He is halfway through a Masters degree in pathology at the UoN, where he has also done one semester towards a Master of Arts in sociology.

And he still finds time to dabble in politics, with two unsuccessful – and rather unspectacular – bids for the Juja Parliamentary seat on his resume.

Born on September 26, 1970 in Thika, Dr Wangai's academic pursuits kicked off in 1977 when he joined Standard 1 at Holy Rosary Primary school near his home.

"I did not have the luxury of going to nursery and pre-unit, so I went straight to primary school," he says. Though he was among the brightest boys in his class all through, his early life had little ambitions.

"I could think of nothing more that just being number one and getting the prize at the end of every term."

In 1983 he sat the Certificate of Primary Education examination and, as expected by his parents and the entire school, scored the maximum 36 points.

The man, whose first name, Kiama, translates loosely in Gikuyu to "a miracle," says no miracles have happened in his life. Perhaps it's the second name, Wangai, meaning a "man of God".

Though he had all the opportunities to join the best schools in the country, he settled for Chania High School near his home where he was a day scholar. 

"When in Form 1, my biggest ambition was to go to Form 2. I found myself in Form 4 without a clear picture of what I wanted in life," he says.

In 1987 he sat for the "O" level exams and scored a first division. He then joined Nyeri High School, perhaps to take up his father's lost opportunity.

He pauses to explain. He was born to Mr Erastus Wangai and Mrs Florence Wanjiru. His father worked in sisal factory before finding his way into a teaching career. He had moved to the industrial town of Thika in search of a job after his bid to be enrolled at Nyeri High School failed due to lack of fees.

Eventually, he studied privately and passed his secondary school examinations, gaining admission to Kamwenja Teachers College.

The older Wangai taught in Ukambani and rose to head St Patrick's Primary School in Thika from where he quit last year and joined his wife in farming.

In 1989, Dr Wangai goes on, he fulfilled his father's lost opportunity by sitting his "A" levels at Nyeri High. He scored three principles and one subsidiary. 

It was while in Nyeri that the need for career choice arose and he found himself at cross-roads.

On one hand, his contemporaries were gearing to study engineering at the university and pulling him along. But his science subject combination could not favour him.

On the other hand was his school principal, Fr Hilary Wambugu, who would hear of nothing else but medicine.

"I did not plan to become a doctor, but being the best student in the school, there was really nothing better that one could be," he remarks, with a pint of pride.

His first choice was pharmacy, but his career master immediately changed it to medical surgery.

So, even as Wangai joined the University of Nairobi's Faculty of Medicine in 1990, his mind was still not made up on what exactly to study.

"At some point, I decided to move to the Faculty of Law, but before I could do it, the semester was over and all the faculties were full." 

Dr Wangai says when he gave his best shot to human anatomy, it turned out to be the best course in which he got a distinction after seven years.

He would have graduated in June 1995 but for an 11-month lecturers' strike that paralysed learning in all public universities in the country.

He graduated in 1996 and joined the country's biggest teaching and referral hospital, Kenyatta National, as an intern. After one year, he was registered as a medical doctor.

At the university or slightly earlier, he discovered political ambitions. He was the chairman of the medical students bodies both at the University of Nairobi and at the regional level in East Africa, a position that enabled him to travel throughout the continent.

During the countdown to the first multi-party elections in 1992 while still a student, Dr Wangai went to the frontline in political campaigns. He joined prominent personalities in rallies organised by the Forum for Restoration of Democracy.

As the 1997 elections raised dust countrywide, the internship at the KNH was actually poised to join politics. No sooner had he completed the programme than he immediately joined the Safina party. 

Safina was then a high-flying party fronted by the likes of Dr Richard Leakey and MP Paul Muite, newly-registered after being denied registration for years by the Moi government. It was one of those outfits dreaded by Kanu leadership on the belief that it was sponsored by "foreign masters".

"Quitting a government job at Kenyatta Hospital to join politics was the easiest decision to make," Dr Wangai says with no reservations.

But his political debut was a total disaster. He trailed badly in seventh place as Mr Stephen Ndicho, formerly of Ford Asili, retained the seat on a Social Democratic Party ticket. 

Dr Wangai takes his poor performance philosophically: "In politics, there is no number two or three. You are either number one or number none. When you miss that seat even by one vote you are as good as the rest," he says.

With the elections over and Kanu back in power, Dr Wangai may, as well, have already counted out any other chance of working for the government.

In January 1998, he was contracted to take part in a high-profile HIV/Aids research involving prostitutes in the Majengo slums of Nairobi. 

The ambitious project spearheaded by University of Nairobi medical school jointly with Manitoba University was intended to produce a vaccine for the killer disease. 

"It was one of the most exciting times in my career," Dr Wangai says of the programme in which he spent five years. "The commercial sex workers were very cooperative and I got to learn a lot about people's behaviours."

But while at it, the repressed ambition was sprouting more and more strongly – he still wanted to become a lawyer.

"One of the greatest things was that the engine of the 1990s political struggle was the group of the lawyers led by Paul Muite, James Orengo, Gitobu Imanyara, Gibson Kamau Kuria and others," he says with a nostalgia. "This inspired me so much that I had to find out how I'd cross over from the medical field," 

On May 24, 1999, Dr Wangai enrolled at the University of Nairobi's Faculty of Law while still working on the Aids project.

But before the 2002 elections, his employers asked him to choose between his job and politics. The two universities were not keen to be associated with an active politician, especially an opposition sympathiser.

"I hoped they would let me join the campaigns during my leave, but I had no problem quitting," he recalls. "Politics is a calling and I will be in it at all costs." This time, he ran on an SDP ticket, alongside 10 other candidates. He got 451 votes coming seventh again with the seat this time going to Mr William Kabogo on a Sisi kwa Sisi party ticket. 

In 2003, Dr Wangai graduated with a degree in law and after pupilage he immediately enrolled for a Masters in law with the University of South Africa distant learning programme. In the meantime, he also attended the Kenya School of Law of and was admitted to the bar alongside 34 other lawyers on April 7, this year.

Now he is back working as a doctor at Kenyatta Hospital.

Dr Wangai describes medicine and law as two worlds apart. That is a gap he aims to fill with his sociology studies. His ambition is to bring everything together by setting up a medico-legal consultancy office in Nairobi.

Ultimately, his mission is to offer legal and medical consultancy services to doctors and insurance companies on claim audits. "This will ensure that I work as both a lawyer and a medical expert," he explains, "I want to go beyond meeting patients and treating them or appearing in court for suspects and litigants." 

He wants to explore widely the area of medical law and and practises, particularly dealing with ethical issues in the profession.

This will involve dealing with doctors and patients' legal rights and obligations. "Doctors are specially trained people and they are way above their patients in knowledge and skills. The profession requires policing by people who know it from in and out."

He says traditionally, lawyers were regarded as "learned friends" because they went to law as a culmination of studies in other diverse fields. 

"A lawyer with only a degree in law is not really a learned friend," he adds.

With so much in his hands will he be there in 2007? 

"Oh yes! I am a perpetual candidate. Call the elections any time and like the disciples of Jesus I will leave everything and come," he told Lifestyle recently.

He says his love for politics is because unlike medicine and law, the game has no rules. "There are no good reasons why some people win and others lose," he says.

Asked about his social life, Dr Wangai quickly waves the topic away. No amount of persuasion will move him into discussing that area of his life.

"Remember I am a politician and this can be used by my enemies to vanquish me completely," he says, with the fervour and choice of phrase that reveals politics is indeed in his blood. 

Indeed, politics remains his pet subject and as he puts it, that arena is yet to see thelast of him.