Stakeholders in the health sector have called for urgent and innovative interventions to save medical education in Nigeria.
This call was made at the maiden edition of the Medical Education Summit of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) which seeks to proffer solutions to medical education challenges.
At the summit, medical professionals and experts urged review of the medical education curriculum in Nigerian universities to salvage medical education in the country.
Victor Makanjuola, president of the expressed concerns around the common perception that the general standard of tertiary education in Nigeria is at a crossroads, with medical education in a peculiar kind of crisis.
He said the challenges are daunting when weighed against the background of unrestricted emigration of medical teachers in search of greener pastures.
“The already precarious situation has been made worse by an unpredictable academic calendar, no thanks to the incessant industrial actions by multiple university unions, outdated academic curricula, and perennial underfunding of the universities and medical colleges,” he said.
According to him, the difficulties associated with accessing research grants domiciled within the medical colleges have added to the list of the setbacks faced by medical and other tertiary education in Nigeria.
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To this end, he urged that, “Deliberate innovative approaches from a wide range of stakeholders are required to make any meaningful and sustainable intervention to save medical education in Nigeria.”
The president further expressed concerns that Nigeria only retains 30 percent of the 4,000 doctors produced annually in the country and about 30 per cent of those retrained on an annual basis.
He warned that the country is already in crisis, and will go into a deeper crisis unless there is a mechanism of increasing the 4,000 annual production to 12,000.
“We probably retain just about 30 percent of those retrained on an annual basis and we are retaining about 30 percent of about 4,000 produced annually.
”If we retain 30 percent of 12,000, it’s better than 30 percent of 4,000 and if we train about 12,000, 30 percent of that is far better than the current state of about 4,000 and with that we think we can still support the system, not optimally but at least keep the system going,” he explained.
In his remarks, Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the House of Representatives, who was represented by Tanko Yusuf Sununu, the chairman, of the House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare Services, noted that recently the National Assembly conducted an educational service on pressuring institutions, but, medical education wasn’t there.
While speaking in a paper titled, “Advancing medical competency in graduating medical doctors” Eniola Erekosima, sought more funding to boost the medical sectors.
He called on the government to fund this and come up with a strategy on how we manage the situation now politically to talk about your question. I mean, to answer your question, there are medical schools that are springing up privately,
“There is increasing concern on the quality of undergraduate medical training on the reduction of the level of knowledge, skills as well as professional conduct of a sizable percentage due to multiple factors,” he said.
“The politicians, the leaders have to fund the medical institutions and come up with a strategy on how to manage the situation, there are medical schools that are springing up privately.
“I’m not aware of how the regulation is intense over there, whether they are there for commercial purposes, or to bring the doctors to look after our people,” he added.
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