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Medical Experts Call For National Examination Board To Check Quackery

Some medical experts are seeking the establishment of a formal National Examination Board that will test medical graduates before they go into full practice. They … Continue reading Medical Experts Call For National Examination Board To Check Quackery


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Professor Mrs Bernice Adegbehingbe

Some medical experts are seeking the establishment of a formal National Examination Board that will test medical graduates before they go into full practice.

They believe that such test will ensure that only qualified doctors are registered, saying it will be a reliable means of reducing the menace of quacks.

The experts spoke at the 9th Annual Faculty week of the Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Health sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife in Osun State, southwest Nigeria.

Giving their speeches on a central theme: “Medical Education in Nigeria: the Challenges and Prospects”,‎ agreed that there was an urgent need to brainstorm on the challenges and strength of medical education in Nigeria especially as it relates to the medical school.

According to them, the standard of medical practice and the health of the citizenry in the nation depends largely and strongly on the standard of training of the medical practitioners in line with global best and standard practice.

A Source Of Frustration

One of the speakers, Professor Uche Onwudiegwu, from the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the OAU in his lecture on “Undergraduate Medical Education in Nigeria Challenges and Prospect, called on the Federal and State government to do more as there were not enough hospitals to absorb medical graduates for internship.

‎ He said: “Currently, Nigeria has about 60 to 65 thousand registered doctors of which about 35,000 are in practice. This figure, however, is inadequate. In contrast U.S.A. has about 916,000 active physician that is not enough for her population which is just about two and half times that of Nigeria. For our population and by WHO prescribed practice one doctor to six hundred residents, Nigeria needs. 280,000 doctors as of today.

“Nigeria’s doctor patient ratio is 28 to 100,000 or one doctor to 4,000 Nigerians. Nigeria produces about about 2,900 doctors yearly compared to 17,000 yearly in the USA.

“At current pace it will take Nigeria about a 100 years to meet WHO target.This is to tell you of what the situation is like”.

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Professor Uche Onwudiegwu

According to him “a Nigerian Guardian Newspaper editorial of 2006 estimated that 2,500 Nigerian fresh doctors were without internship placements 18 months after graduation”.

“Though the figure ‎is better today, it is still worrisome as many state governments in Nigeria today are not ready to invest and upgrade their general hospitals, employ consultants and train house officers,” he further observed.

Professor Onwudiegwu, however, pointed out that financial constraints had prevented most hospitals accredited for internship from absorbing fresh doctors for the programmes, saying that many young doctors still roam the streets upwards of 12e months before securing placement for internship.

“This has been a source of frustration for the victims and their families and should be addressed.

“If Nigeria’s present health system cannot absorb our doctors, this leads to brain drain‎ because internship is an integral part of undergraduate medical education without which the training is incomplete,”he explained.

Professor Onwudiegwu also called for continued review of the curriculum, informing the gathering that “what we don’t have is emphasis on communication skills. Doctors need to be good communicators,

“How do people learn and study are things you need to learn? Some are still using the curriculum of 1948 used in University of Ibadan 68 years after. The curriculum on medical education should be reviewed every five years at most seven years to be a better doctor,” he advocated.

The Dean, Faculty of Clinical Sciences of the OAU, Professor Mrs Bernice Adegbehingbe, said the theme had become mandatory, considering the determinants of the current decline in the standard of education in Nigeria, especially as it relates to Medical Examination.

In addition, she said: “We need to uphold the high standard of education in our faculty and uplifting the philosophy that has been the foundation of the uniqueness of the quality of medical graduates produced from our faculty”.

“About two weeks ago a team of medical students from our faculty participates in the 3rd international competition of Medicine where 33 medical schools from all over the world were engaged in a tough competition in Mexico. I led our team to this competition, the experience and exposure at the international competition cannot be described. I believe with the current curriculum review on the way, our college, our education standard shall be re-invigorated.

“What we want to achieve with this lecture is that at the end, we all would have been able to define a definite pathway of improvements in our reading and learning standards as it relates to undergraduate medical examination,” she told the gathering.