Nigerian Medical Council Inducts 249 Foreign Trained Graduates

The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria has inducted 249 foreign trained medical and dental graduates. A total of 686 medical and 10 dental candidates registered for the MDCN assessment examination, out of which 243 medical and six dental surgeons passed. This represents 35 percent success for the medical and 60 percent success for the dental, making the overall success rate 35.7 percent. About 437 foreign trained medical students who sat for the examination at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, UITH, failed when the result was released last year. The 437 students have since challenged the result at the Nigerian Senate and the law court, alleging that the process was manipulated against them. The MDCN assessment examination is a routine professional examination conducted to assess candidates trained outside Nigeria, who obtained medical or dental qualifications recognized by the individual medical regulatory body of such countries. Speaking at the induction ceremony in Abuja on Thursday, the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, expressed concern over the number of students that failed the assessment examination. He blamed the high rate of failure on the institutions attended by some of the students. Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health Osarenoma Uwaifo, the minister urged parents who are planning to send their children and wards abroad for training to ensure that they are trained in accredited institutions. In his welcome address, the Registrar of MDCN, Tajudeen Sanusi, who acknowledged the furor that trailed the last examination, said that candidates who were not successful still have the opportunity to repeat the examination. “The outcome of the last examination had made the journey from the period of remedial course till the present time very turbulent, as Council was and it is still faced with the challenges of having to explain and defend the poor performance of some of the candidates that were unsuccessful at the examination,” he said. In his remark, the president of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) Mike Ogirima, warned that the welfare of doctors must not be handled with levity. “I want to sound this to the government of Nigeria and subsequent governments that they should not toy with the welfare of medical doctors. In the country, we have about 50,000 medical and dental practitioners,” he said He said this was essential to halt brain drain in the medical industry in Nigeria. “Government has been trying its best but the best is yet to come and I pray that this government will find solution to stop that brain drain of our very highly skilled professionals. Doctors, medical officers, consultants of various specialties are denied working for the country because of lack of vacancies. “We implore government to increase the capacity of all our health institutions so that we can consume our products and take care adequately of the health needs of our country men and women,” Mr. Ogirima said. The guest lecturer at the ceremony, Antonio Ferreira, who spoke on medical ethics and the practice of medicine in Nigeria, challenged the new inductees to maintain the standards of the profession and also stick by the ethics.