MDCAN WITHDRAWS SERVICE FROM NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

The disagreement between National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) over mandatory PhD demand on clinical lecturers has worsened, as MDCAN has withdrawn it’s services from medical education in all medical colleges in Nigerian universities.

3. If the NUC fails to withdraw her secular, there is a very high probability that MDCAN, and all her members will commence an indefinite industrial action after the resolution of the meeting today.
This industrial action will have massive impact on medical education as all clinical activities and lectures will be brought to a complete halt in all medical schools across the country, starting from tomorrow.

As MDCAN threatened earlier to embark on strike if the NUC did not withdraw it’s circular to Nigerian universities on compulsory postgraduate training for clinical sciences from medical education .

The NUC, through a circular had directed vice-chancellors of universities and the Registrar of the National Postgraduate Medical College that doctors teaching students in universities must have PhD to qualify them for the job, noting that residency training leading to the posession of Fellowship was not enough to qualify them to teach medical students in universities.

While addressing newsmen in Jos, Plateau State, the National President MDCAN, Professor Kenneth Ozoilo, who said the association will withdraw it’s services from medical education as from Monday (February 24), said it was an established fact that the curriculum content of the Fellowship far outstrips that of the PhD.

“While the PhD is a predominantly academic pursuit, the Fellowship is both academic and professional, and as of today, is the minimum qualification required to practice as a specialist, and to teach medicine. Let me also add that this the practice worldwide.

He said the NUC has failed to address basic fundamental question such as what is the deficiency in medical education currently that the NUC plans to correct by imposing the PhD on medical lecturers?

The MDCAN President, declared thus: “Come midnight February 24, we shall withdraw our services from medical education in Nigeria and focus our energies on caring for our patients. We wish the NUC and the universities good luck in finding doctors with PhDs to man their medical schools”.

Those doctors want to use strike as a cheap blackmail to circumvent rules