Strikes affecting fellowship enrolment, specialists –Postgraduate medical school president

Lara Adejoro

The President of the Nationwide Postgraduate Medical Faculty of Nigeria, Ijanikin, Lagos, Prof Akin Osibogun, speaks with LARA ADEJORO on the explanations for the decline within the variety of fellowship purposes within the school and methods to enhance medical apply within the nation

What’s the that means of fellowship in medication?

Medical training in Nigeria adopted the British sample as a result of the British have been those that colonised Nigeria and began orthodox medication in Nigeria, and so we adopted the sample. The sample of coaching is to have an undergraduate trainee in medical faculty. You come out of medical faculty, and in Nigeria and everywhere in the world, you do an internship after popping out of medical faculty and do what we name the “housemanship” for one 12 months. It is just after one 12 months that you just grow to be totally registered as a result of, throughout that one 12 months, you’ve gotten solely provisional registration as we’re watching you as you might be treating sufferers.

After one 12 months, once we are glad underneath the supervision of consultants, we provide the full licence. Then, you go for youth service, and after that, you’ll be able to determine to enter normal apply, or you’ll be able to determine to go for postgraduate medical training.

So, the fellowship is the very best postgraduate qualification any physician can obtain, and it requires some six to seven years of coaching underneath consultants. It consists of management coaching, medical coaching, lectures, and managerial coaching, in order that on the finish of it, you should have had educational {and professional} coaching, management coaching, and you’re going to get the fellowship.

After receiving the fellowship, it is possible for you to to work as a advisor.

In fact, one other physique registers medical {qualifications}, and that’s the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria. The MDCN regulates skilled medical apply, so if you end the fellowship, you’ll tender it to the MDCN, and it’ll recognise the fellowship from the NPMCN as a result of it’s established by Nigerian regulation to be accountable for postgraduate medical training in Nigeria. You may have a further qualification licence and may practise as a advisor in any of the medical specialties as soon as you might be registered with the MDCN.

There are at the moment about 16 specialties, together with obstetrics and gynecology, paediatrics, inner medication, surgical procedure, public well being medication, ear, nostril, and throat, and anesthesia amongst a number of others.

What are the features of fellowship?

The fellowship coaching is to just be sure you purchase some abilities, competencies, and information so as to operate as a specialist advisor in medication and dentistry.

Because the president of the faculty, what are the belongings you plan to do in your administration?

First, I need to give credit score to the founding fathers of the faculty, because the design of the residency coaching programme has been very sturdy. It’s going to shock you to know that even the UK has to repeat among the issues we began right here. Our founding fathers constructed on what they introduced to incorporate the tutorial part.

The problem earlier than us now’s the problem of the inadequacy of medical medical doctors in Nigeria, in addition to the inadequacy of specialists in Nigeria. So what we try to do on the NPMCN now’s to leverage know-how to have the ability to prepare extra and prepare higher. We’re organising simulation coaching centres.

The coaching centres have what we discuss with as “high-fidelity” gear that may mimic human beings, so you utilize them to reinforce coaching in order that your trainees can transfer quicker to human beings, so no matter they should do on human beings, they’d have first performed it on the gear.

We have already got one totally outfitted in Lagos at our premises in Ijanikin. We even have one in Abuja.

Moreover, we have now inspired some educating hospitals to ascertain some; for instance, the Lagos College Instructing Hospital has a surgical abilities coaching centre that was established after I was the hospital’s Chief Medical Director, so we are actually constructing on that have. Our hope is to have one among these in every geo-political zone in order that will probably be nearer to the residents.

Presently, once we run the coaching, it’s important to go to these centres in Lagos and Abuja. The Borno State Authorities has already offered us land, and the Rivers State Authorities has offered us land, however the constructing and the gear will value cash.

Nevertheless, we’re getting assist, a part of it’s the place Borno and Rivers state governments have offered us with the land they usually made assist for that. Our major sponsor, the Federal Authorities of Nigeria, has all the time been supportive.

What are you doing to ensure the fellowship is recognised in lots of extra nations?

The fellowship is recognised exterior the nation because the qualification required in Nigeria. Most nations recognise their very own our bodies, and each nation recognises that Nigeria has the NPMC.

However now, every nation places in place mechanisms to vet folks coming from different nations with {qualifications}. So, in case you’re going to the USA, they’ll wish to offer you an examination to make certain you’ve gotten the qualification, however for particular {qualifications}, many nations have waivers as a result of I do know a few of my colleagues who’re fellows of the faculty and are practising within the UK. They didn’t must undergo any examinations. In Nigeria, individuals who prepare in different nations are examined, and the MDCN units exams for them.

What’s the rationale behind the rise in examination charges, figuring out that it’s going to solely improve the workload of the resident medical doctors?

Though that has been resolved, I’ll rapidly clarify the background to you. In fact, you recognize that to fly from Abuja to Lagos used to value N30, 000, and now it has elevated, and you recognize that diesel now prices way more than earlier than. In order that implies that the associated fee will go up, so the price of operating the exams went up, and anyone needed to bear the associated fee. It’s the authorities that’s coaching the residents of Nigeria; the federal government has accepted to bear the associated fee, so the federal government has agreed to offer the fund that it’s going to present to the residents for assembly the examination value, so it has been resolved.

There’s a mass exodus of medical doctors, particularly younger medical doctors. What can the nation do to reverse the pattern?

First, no matter no matter we do, human nature is adventurous. Some folks will nonetheless journey, however you’ll be able to maintain that quantity at a really low stage by enhancing the work setting right here.

In different phrases, if I’ve a cushty work setting, why am I travelling? The work setting consists of the working instruments as a result of I’ve the information, but when I don’t have the working instruments, I’ll see my sufferers die unnecessarily, and it’s irritating. If I’ve the information and the working instruments, and the setting is conducive, I’ll derive some job satisfaction from having the ability to practise my occupation. Second, I’ve youngsters; I’ve a household; I’ve to take care of them, pay faculty charges, pay hire, and if his take-home pay is inadequate to pay his youngsters’s faculty charges, he’s tempted emigrate to a spot the place he can earn sufficient cash to teach his youngsters. You can too present incentives in several methods; they have to not be monetary; they’ll simply recognise individuals who transcend the decision of obligation, together with nationwide awards.

The opposite factor to do to make sure that younger medical doctors stay within the nation is to work out long-term mortgage schemes in order that if a younger physician can have entry to 2 or three bedrooms that he will pay over the following 20 to 30 years, he doesn’t must search for the money instantly, and what he’s paying yearly is just not greater than he’s paying as hire now, then he received’t be in a rush emigrate as a result of he is aware of he has a home. There are different issues to be performed to maintain younger folks right here, and it’s not rocket science. You possibly can guarantee their youngsters have instructional services.

Most significantly, you will need to recognise the work that they’re doing.

There’s a report on the drop within the variety of fellowship purposes. What are the explanations for this?

A number of the causes are associated to mind drain. The younger medical doctors will wish to consider their wages and their work local weather. So in the event that they assume that they’ll get extra earnings exterior, then they go. There are shortages in these nations, in addition to in the UK.

So, the UK is on the lookout for medical doctors; the US is on the lookout for medical doctors; Canada is on the lookout for medical doctors; and if they provide higher pay, younger medical doctors will wish to go. So, they’re going, which suggests they won’t be fascinated with sitting for fellowship exams as a result of they have already got the essential medical diploma, to allow them to go there and practise as generalists, or once they go there, they’ll undergo the residency coaching programme there and practise as specialists.

The opposite issue, which can be coming into play, is the extended strike by the Educational Workers Union of Universities.

As it’s now, if you’re not graduating any medical doctors in 2022, you’ll not have home officers in 2023, and in case you don’t have home officers in 2023, you received’t have folks going instantly into the residency coaching programme, so we have to assume forward and stop a few of these bottlenecks.

Aside from what you’ve gotten talked about, what are the opposite implications of the drop in fellowship purposes?

If we decelerate in your coaching otherwise you’re not having sufficient purposes, it implies that we received’t produce extra specialists, and already we’re understaffed on the subject of specialists. So, what we have to do is put in place mechanisms to encourage folks to enter residency coaching programmes in order that we will have extra specialists.

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