Prospective Interns/House Officers Association of Nigeria (PIHAN)

Medical doctors, pharmacists, and medical laboratory scientists are wasting away years at home due to difficulty in getting internship placements. Please kindly post this call for action to bring wider attention to their plight. It's mandatory that fresh medical graduates embark on 12months uninterrupted housemanship/internship in various approved hospitals within Nigeria. However due to high number of medical graduates, few number of hospitals approved plus some shady activities of some Chief medical directors of various hospitals, many new interns find it virtually impossible to get placements. This has lead to large number of medical doctors, pharmacists and laboratory scientists staying at home for over two years (the time-limit for provisional licence) without getting placement. Regulatory organizations have abandoned these group of people including the MDCN, PSN and MLSCN especially after collecting exorbitant dues. It must be noted that not only medical doctors are affected by this developments. Also pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists, radiographers and physiotherapy graduates are affected too. There should be a regulated and efficient method for internship placements in Nigeria.

Cc: lalasticlala
dominique
Sissy3

A proposal for the proper regulation of Medical Internship/Housemanship

Section I
Critical Challenges been faced by Prospective Interns/House Officers
There is an ongoing crisis in the Nigerian Medical Internship/Housemanship placement which has plagued its prospective interns/house officers for years. The mandatory internship/housemanship program is an extension of our training, where we acquire more comprehensive clinical training as we are dealing with the most sacred form of life, the human life and as such there is the very need for us in the health sector to be efficient and competent in all ramifications. Having said that, this mandatory one year program has virtually become a stumbling block to prospective interns/house officers as there are no well structured and organised modalities put in place for securing placement. You can imagine a situation where a graduate from Medicine, Pharmarcy, Medical Laboratory Science, Radiography, Physiotherapy, Nutrition and Dietitrics, Optometry will graduate from the University after five or six years, then stay back at home for additional two to three years or more pending when him/her can secure placement in any of the accredited hospitals. This unneccessary delay caused by the irregularities in the process is uncalled for and grossly unacceptable. To worsen the situation, most hospitals are now in the habit of selecting just a few from the thousands of the crowd that put in for the application. In addition, most of them sell their forms for as high as N5000, N3000, and N2000, to all candidates only to take less than 30 applicants from the thousands that bought the form leaving the others helpless after the release of the interview results.

Prospective interns/house officers risk their lives nationwide in the bid to attend interview in various parts of the nation and at the end of the day, they are disappointed, and it is not a question of them not passing the interview exams but most often, this can be attributed to multiple factors such as not having the connection, not having the funds to probably pay for a slot, the politics that is inherent in the hospital management board, the small size capacity of the laboratory, for instance which may not be able to cater for or contain all the intern med lab scientists, and so many other unforeseen factors. The most grievous of all is the sales of forms to thousands of candidates and end up taking less than thirty (30) from the crowd, together with the politics been played in the entire process, which in most hospitals, the process is far from transparent and merit. From our own perspective, this appear to be tantamount to exploiting and taking undue advantage of the helpless candidates financially, who are in dire need of securing placement for the mandatory one year internship/housemanship program which precedes the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Because of this delay in the process of securing placement, prospective interns/house officers are going through hard times, wasting at home, getting weary and are seen like people who never actually graduated from school since they are not going to service immediately as this is what is obtainable among fresh university graduates. Again, the cumbersome predicament will always result in a situation whereby a 200level or 300level student in another discipline outside the medical field in the university will graduate and go for service while a medical graduate who must have graduated some two to three years back will still be wasting time at home since no internship/housemanship, no service. This is grossly unacceptable. Prospective interns/house officers are therefore requesting the Federal Government, the National Assembly, National Universities Commission and the various regulatory bodies to urgently step into the situation and resolve this crisis by regulating internship/housemanship for the entire Medical graduates.
Having pointed out the enormous challenges been faced by prospective interns/house officers, below are some few recommendations to aid in the regulation of the entire process and bring a permanent halt to the worrisome challenges.

Section II
Recommendations:

1. There is a need for the one year internship/housemanship placement to be regulated just like the National Youth Service Corps, which therefore warrants a body to be set up and charged with the duty of posting medical graduates for the mandatory internship/housemanship program.

2. The said body above will work closely with the various governing council bodies/universities to ensure the universities adhere strictly to the regulation of the council bodies as regards intake of fresh students into the various disciplines, so as to control the output which will be a function of the number and available acredited hospitals.

3. All hospitals' form for internship/housemanship should be made free of charge as obtainable in some few hospitals, since as fresh graduates, we are not occupationally engaged yet. Financially the cost of purchasing a form for say for as high as N5000 may be difficult for some individuals judging by the status quo of our economy.

4. As a matter of urgency, Federal government need to upgrade and properly equip our hospitals to facilitate and enhance further training of medical graduates as this is one of the major setbacks in the entire process.

5. The examination is not neccessary when a medical graduate is qualified and provisionally licensed by their council body. However, should it be done, it has to be for only the few candidates posted to the particular hospital. And should a candidate fail, a resit exam may be considered since the hospital capacity is still not filled up yet. All these modalities will go a long way in curbing the unneccessary delays being experienced by prospective interns/house officers.

6. The maximum capacity of each accredited hospital will have to be placed on record so as to avoid overflooding of a particular hospital.

7. Final exam in medical schools nationwide should be administered quarterly and within a certain period in a bid to synchronize the graduation of new doctors/interns and appropriate placement within that period.

8. The regulatory bodies: MDCN, PSN, MLSCN, other bodies, ministry of health and the federal government should come up with a structured approach to implement the placement of newly inducted interns and doctors through matching of candidates to various hospitals for internship.

9. If number seven above cannot be achieved, then all teaching hospitals should be made to absorb their interns and doctors who pass at first sitting and resit candidates should be matched to various federal medical centers/general hospitals nationwide including private hospitals too.

10. The salary scheme and packages for interns in all hospitals should be synchronized to reduce the monopoly of interest in certain hospitals.

11. The regulatory bodies (MDCN, PSN, MLSCN etc) should also increase the number of hospitals accredited for internship placements so as to cater for the increasing populace of graduating new interns.

Thanks for reading. Pls copy this recommendations and help spread this message.

There is a Twitter campaign also. Pls do well to tweet about this situation to all relevant bodies. The hashtag is #RegulateMedicalInternship

None of my biz but will comment after watching this movie.

j

Hmmm

Okay.

land grabbers above,how much is a plot.

Yup..At last

Ok

I just can't work in Nigeria as a doctor.

ok

Thank God this made front page, you see a federal hospital take just 3-5 interns in some departments, when at least 50something pple are applying for this position.

We thank God things changed a bit this year probably because of Buhari, Luth took over 15-20 physiotherapist interns.. ..

So why the leap this year? You know how much salaries have been pocketed those times they admitted 3people?!

Federal and state hospitals have to increase the numbers of interns/house officers they admit, and let the process be transparent to some extent so medical graduates do not have to spend 1 or 2 years hunting for internships, wasting their lives away

Very soon, they will also want the government to give them a job when they're done with service and internship. That's wrong. Every medical graduate should go into the world and go through the rigors of internship job search. It would make him or her ready to face challenges in life.

However I'm not in support of the application fees. The forms should be free.

Obinoscopy:
Very soon, they will also want the government to give them a job when they're done with service and internship. That's wrong. Every medical graduate should go into the world and go through the rigors of internship job search. It would make him or her ready to face challenges in life.

However I'm not in support of the application fees. The forms should be free.

Internship program is not supposed to be a job search. It is part of the medical graduates program necessary for full licence to practice and that is why there are specified approved centres/institutions.
Internship placement should not be something they should struggle to get.
As for the job search, many of them still enter the labour market in search of jobs like other graduates after internship and NYSC so you don't need to worry about them being spoon-fed.
There are currently many medical professionals looking for jobs.

jaycee687:
I just can't work in Nigeria as a doctor.

Did you study medicine

Lemme learn

well said. my kid bro will soon start looking for an internship place. hope this mess is sorted out before then. nice recommendations

LUTH comes to mind

I went to 4 different organizations this for I.T all saying no no, I totally confused.

OhKay

@last,,,just hope the govt attends to ds asap

Matters like this that affects us; we would kindly follow.

Yes,I did

bacco2000:


Did you study medicine

While there are lots of prospective interns at home looking for placement, it is pathetic to know that we have many secondary and tertiary health facilities overworking the few interns on their payroll.... Why won't they employ more hands?

Seriously would have love to make a recommendations on this, but not easy wrting a thread with touch screen phone. Will check if I can see a copy and paste article as recommendations

n

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