Secret Reporters No place to hide
Judd Leonard Okafor
The Nigerian Medical Association has rejected moves by Enugu State government to appoint a vice chancellor on condition of holding a PhD.
Enugu State University Teaching Hospital recently put up an advert stating a PhD as a condition to appoint a new vice chancellor.
But NMA believes an MBBS—the bachelor’s degree doctors get after medical college—is equivalent to a PhD in both content and curriculum.
It also means a post-graduate fellowship from the National Postgraduate Medical College/West African College is “superior to PhD,” said the association’s national officers committee which met in Abuja last week.
“We therefore call on the authorities of the university to include in their advert the fellowship of these colleges as an alternative of PhD as already endorsed by the National Universities Commission,” said the association’s chairman Dr Kayode Obembe in a statement released after the meeting.
The association has also condemned what it called “illegal activities of [Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria] within the premises of private practitioners.”
It accused the council of going as far as “extorting money from our members.”
The accusation came after MLSCN early this month inspected laboratories in the FCT, including one owned by a private-practice doctor in Gudu area of Abuja.
The doctor had refused entry to the council inspectors, insisting it didn’t have right to inspect his lab since his practice was regulated by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
MLSCN had insisted it wasn’t inspecting the doctor’s practice—just his lab.
