"Spending 11 years studying Medicine is good"- Okebukola

A former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Professor Peter Okebukola, says the commission’s plan to make Medicine and Dentistry post-graduate programmes was long overdue.

He said such initiative would not only put an end to producing “baby doctors,” it would also ensure that graduates emerging from the programmes were psychologically mature to practise, with a high level of competence.

Okebukola, an educationist said it was standard practice across the world for medical students to have a first degree before proceeding on medical training, noting that the development would facilitate an improved health care system in the country.

The NUC had said recently that with its new curriculum, a medical student would be expected to have graduated in any of Anatomy, Biochemistry and Physiology before being admitted for the actual clinical training that would take another seven years and lead to the award of Doctor of Medicine and not just MBBS.

He said, “A consensus was reached by medical experts across the country that a key pathway to remediation is to adopt the global best practice in medical education of enrolling students not fresh from secondary schools but those with a first degree in disciplines allied to Medicine. After the first degree, they then proceed to the doctor of medicine degree.”

He advised those who want courses of shorter duration to elect for courses outside Medicine.

.....Like he did.

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