UCH Medical Consultants Down Tools Over Mandatory PhD Certificate

February 28, 2020

Medical consultants in the University College Hospital, Ibadan, have embarked on an indefinite strike to protest a circular which prescribed acquisition of Ph.D. for clinical lecturers in Nigerian universities.

The consultants under the auspices of Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria said the mandatory Ph.D. was not in tandem with what operates in the developed world.

The circular which was dated December 24, 2019, addressed to vice-chancellors of all Nigeria universities and the registrar of National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria, showed that Ph.D. programmes shall be introduced in the clinical sciences in the university system.

According to the circular, the Ph.D. was for postgraduate training of interested medical practitioners.

Led by their Chairman, Dr. Dare Olulana, the medical experts, said having tried other options that yielded no fruitful results, they had to down tools.

“It is ancient logic that efficiency is compromised whenever the cart is placed before the horse. This is what the obnoxious NUC circular on Ph.D. for clinical lecturers in Nigeria universities that were released represents.”

“This justifiably provoked sufficient upset for us to call an emergency meeting of our association in Abuja on January 4. MDCAN met again two weeks later in Port Harcourt and following extensive deliberations, a 21-day ultimatum was issued to NUC to withdraw the circular but sadly, our demand was ignored.”

The originators of medicine and medical practice, MDCAN maintained, have always trained their doctors relying on the expertise of fellowship earners because they have gone through a carefully developed residency programme that carries both academic and professional contents unmatchable by any other.”

“Consequently, we are left with no further choice than to withdraw our services from the universities with immediate effect. We resolve to comply fully with the directive of our national body to embark on indefinite withdrawal of our services from the College of Medicine, UI.”

“We expected the NUC to go to Canada, USA, Britain, and France to copy new ways of doing things but sadly, the NUC headed to Sudan, Bangladesh and India”, he said.