Volume : IX, Issue : VIII, August - 2020

MEDICAL FELLOWSHIP TRAINING AND PhD DEGREE: THE NIGERIAN EXPERIMENT

Oluwole Gbolagunte Ajao, Adekola Alao

Abstract :

There had been a lot of confusion and misunderstanding in the relationship between medical residency (postgraduate) program and PhD degree among the academics, especially among the medical doctors in the developing countries. There are many reasons for this, but the foundation of the error lies in the fact that, while a PhD course or certification is university based, medical residency or medical specialist training has nothing to do with a university set–up. But many are not aware of this. It is a special, Independent Board of medical specialists that has complete authority over every aspect of the program. Not any university Senate. That is why any well–equipped General Hospital with adequate number of practicing medical specialists can run a medical residency training program without any input from any university. The hospital does not need to be affiliated with any university at all. It is the university that may seek the help of such hospital and make it a “Teaching hospital” for the training of their medical students in their medical schools, because such hospital will be the source of their teachers. William Steward Halsted who started residency program in Surgery started it at Johns Hopkins hospital (1) in 1889. Edward Churchill modified the program to “rectangular residency” at the Massachusetts General hospital, Boston. (2) That is the reason some general hospitals, especially in the US can have about 2 or 3 universities affiliated with one hospital to use as teaching hospital for their medical students in their medical schools. Because many of the statements in connection with the relationship between medical fellowship and PhD degree are in the newspapers and in the Social media posts, it is therefore necessary to cite some of them as references in this article to authenticate the statements, even though they may be regarded as anecdotal. Materials and Method: The programs leading to the award of fellowship certification, and PhD award were holistically analyzed. Findings: It is found that medical first degree in the university, MBBS, or its equivalent is at par with a non–medical PhD degree. Therefore, a comparison of a PhD degree with medical specialists training program (4 to 7 years of an additional training after medical first degree) does not arise at all and it is incongruous. Conclusion: A PhD degree may not be of any relevance to a medical specialist teaching medical students in the university either for promotion to professorship or to be made a vice–chancellor of a university. Also, the “ lumping” together of a professional specialist training with a University Senate postgraduate training is one of the root causes of the confusion.

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Article: Download PDF    DOI : 10.36106/ijsr  

Cite This Article:

MEDICAL FELLOWSHIP TRAINING AND PHD DEGREE: THE NIGERIAN EXPERIMENT, OLUWOLE GBOLAGUNTE AJAO, ADEKOLA ALAO INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH : Volume-9 | Issue-8 | August-2020

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