The recently established Committee on the State of Medical Education in Nigerian Universities met with Professor Abubakar Rasheed, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, to give him an initial report on the work they were given.
This occurred when the NUC reaffirmed its position that medical physicians must earn their Master’s and doctoral degrees to work in academia and advance to the professor level.
There have been debates on whether medical physicians must get master’s and doctoral degrees after obtaining medical fellowships.
The NUC’s Executive Secretary previously stated that the recently launched Doctor of Medicine programme served fundamentally different goals than the initial programme for medical fellowships and that, as a result, “one can never replace the other.”
According to a statement on the NUC website that our reporter came across on Tuesday, Rasheed welcomed the delegation under the direction of the NUC Deputy Executive Secretary, Academics, Dr. Noel Saliu.
According to the Executive Secretary, the Committee still has a lot of work to do in fundamental medical, allied health, dentistry, and basic clinical and clinical sciences as they are all connected to medicine.
Rasheed exhorted them to put in much effort to create a trustworthy record and assessment of medical education in Nigeria.
He instructed them to look closely at the crucial aspects that would revive medical education’s pride, particularly by determining if the nation’s available medical colleges have training facilities for students and whether those students are also receiving the necessary instruction. He explained to the group that the commission required access to all of this information to determine what recommendations to make to the government and other national organisations.
“The NUC scribe indicated that since taking over his position, he had struggled mightily to handle medically related concerns because of the fractions in medicine.
“He praised the medical professionals who had refrained from becoming involved in questionable matters, noting that it was only through his tenacity that he had been able to get the medical community together to examine the medical curriculum. He emphasised the need for reform in medical education and expressed his satisfaction with the modifications made to the medical curriculum, according to the statement.
The Executive Secretary said that NUC first sought to distance itself from the medical postgraduate institution that attempted to wield excessive influence by conferring PhDs, stating that while individuals may become world-class scholars in medicine, a PhD in medicine makes it more complete.
Rasheed continued to harp on the subject and stated that PhD students shouldn’t be subjected to the same level of academic load as those pursuing clinically-based Master’s degrees in medicine.
He emphasised that a Doctorate should focus more on research and said that without a PhD plus a master’s degree, no one could become a professor of medicine. He encouraged the Committee to exert all reasonable efforts to provide an excellent report on the state of medicine in Nigeria.
Dr. Noel Abiodun Saliu, speaking on behalf of the team, pledged that the Committee would compel the Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian universities to submit the list of necessary documents in order to expedite its task and incorporate the anticipated data that would demonstrate the condition of the medical facilities in the country’s universities.
He promised the Executive Secretary that the Committee’s task would be finished by the end of April.
Professors Ibrahim Yakasai, B.B. Shehu, King David Yawe, and Joseph Ahaneku were also members of the Committee on the state of medical education in Nigeria, while Saadiya Sambo, a member of the NUC Directorate of Academic Planning, would act as the Committee’s Secretary.
