Nigeria ranks fourth globally in population of medical doctors, professor says

Kanu Nkanginieme, a professor of paediatrics from the University of Port Harcourt, has said Nigeria ranks fourth in the world’s population of medical doctors.

Nkanginieme stated this in his paper presentation at the Theophilus Oladipo-Ogunlesi Memorial Lecture 2023, organised at the 17th Annual Scientific Conference and All Fellows’ Congress (ASCAF) on Thursday in Ilorin.

The association is a body of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria.

The consultant paediatrician observed that despite the ranking of medical professionals that the country produces, there are contradictions that continue to plague the country.

He advised exploiting “our potential to contribute and impact the country positively, rather than just vendor from developments in the practice, training and evaluation of medicine in today’s world.”

The expert observed that some national and institutional debatable contradictions in the country include primary healthcare centres lacking enough doctors, and “yet we export many.”

“State general hospitals are understaffed while federal medical centres are overstaffed. Medical consumable items get out of stock, citizens’ medical out-of-pocket spending rises,” he lamented.

Nkanginieme advocated a paradigm shift of “teacher-centeredness to self-directed, self-motivated learner-centredness.”

According to him, there should be a shift from traditional clinical postings without any specific outcome audit, to structured and quantified clinical cognition and performance skills modules, with specific individual, trainee and trainer responsibility and accountability.

Nkanginieme also advised a shift from using hours of lectures and practicals in credit units assignment to courses to hours of self-study and serial verification of cognition and performance skills proficiency.

Nkanginieme added that this would be in clinical practice modules and in the quantification of the medical course credit unit, warning that “we cannot allow weak medical students to drive medical education” in Nigeria “because medicine involves human life, whenever learning is seen to have not occurred, complete remediation and verification of learning are called for rather than carryover.”

The medical expert added, “A clause should accommodate complete remediation and allow weak medical students to graduate in nine years, rather than six years, with remediation.”

(NAN)