Medical experts react to MDCAN’s call for only doctors to be teaching in medical schools
Nigeria’s Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) and the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) have made public their intention to stop non doctors from lecturing in Nigeria’s medical schools. The call was made at a joined stakeholders meeting of the two national bodies held in Abuja.
They said the call was premised on recorded high failure rates in postgraduate medical education which reflected the poor training and assessment methods which needs improvement.
The medical practitioners further lamented the pass rate of foreign trained medical students, who sit for medical examination in the country.
The joined bodies said only doctors with degrees in basic medical sciences should lecture students.
In their statement, MDCN reiterated that Lecturers who are not doctors ‘should no longer’ teach medical students. Lecturers in basic medical sciences who are not medical doctors should be phased out over time.
“There are 42 universities where undergraduate medical education is taking place in Nigeria. Thirty two of the medical schools are fully accredited while 10 are partially accredited as at 2018. There are nine dental schools and three specialised universities of medical sciences.
“About 3,700 medical students gain admission yearly. The pass rate of foreign trained medical students who sat for the MDCN exam has been reducing over time with the lowest being 15% in February 2018.
MDCN further stated that “Undergraduate medical education in Nigeria is challenged by outdated curriculum, lecturers who are not medical doctors especially at the basic medical sciences level, insufficient or lack of teaching aids, sub-standard library, decay of infrastructure and laboratories, lecturers who are not themselves educators, and inadequately equipped clinics.
“MDCN should ensure that graduating medical students have places to do horsemanship. It was suggested that private hospitals, general hospitals and some district hospitals can be affiliated with teaching hospitals and federal medical centres for the purpose of increasing the spaces available for house job.”
Health experts react
Health experts that spoke to healthnews.africa described the call as unrealistic as medical students are required to take a wide range of courses, which could only be taught by other health experts.
The health expects reiterated that medical field should be open up to other borrowed courses, which would make the medical students more grounded professionals at the end of their studies.
In the same vein, Prof. Rufus Adedoyin, the National President of Association of Clinical and Academic Physiotherapists of Nigeria, objected to the demand of the two national medical bodies. Rufus recounted that outdated curriculum of the medical schools are responsible for the high failure rate recorded not lecturers.
He said the system should be left open as other programmes in sociology, psychology and basic sciences cannot be properly well taking by medical experts.
Professor Rufus called for update of existing curriculum. He suggested the adoption of the American style of medical education which allows students to acquire their first degrees before enrolling in medical school.
In a similar vein, a medical expert in the School of Nursing, Kafanchan, Kaduna State, Mrs. Mercy Adamu noted the wide nature of the medical field and the need to bring in other hands. She said this made it imperative for medical students to borrow courses not being taught by medical doctors.
“I will say that lecturers, who are doctors, alone can’t teach them. If they can specialise in other things because medicine is not all about one aspect. There are so many aspects like anatomy and more so that the doctors do not have knowledge about,” she said.