Fellowship Vs PhD

Sometime in January 2021, the tenure of the then VC of LASU, Prof. Lanre Fagbohun was coming to an end and a successor was needed. As is the usual tradition, a joint Selection Committee of the Senate and Council was set up by the university to interview candidates for the position of a new VC […]

Sometime in January 2021, the tenure of the then VC of LASU, Prof. Lanre Fagbohun was coming to an end and a successor was needed. As is the usual tradition, a joint Selection Committee of the Senate and Council was set up by the university to interview candidates for the position of a new VC and submit the names of the three best candidates for the job to the ‘Oga Kpata Kpata’ – the Lagos State Governor for final selection of the most successful candidate for the position.

The advertisement for the post required a successful applicant to be a Professor of at least 10 years standing, with good track-record of academic excellence of local and international repute, including supervision and mentoring of postgraduate students, demonstration of continuous capacity for academic leadership, track record of experience in university administration at high levels, and evidence of unassailable grounding in the finest academic traditions.

More than eighteen Professors, all academic giants in their own right, from almost ten different universities both within and outside Nigeria applied for the job. Among these fine applicants, the Selection Committee settled for three top candidates, including Prof Olumuyiwa Odusanya, a Professor of Public Health; Prof Senapon Bakre, a Professor of Microbiology, and Prof Kabiru Akinyemi, another professor of Microbiology made the list of the top three.

Then a controversy broke out. At the centre of the controversy was the insinuation that one of the candidates was not qualified for the job because his entry qualification to the university was the Fellowship of the Nigerian Postgraduate Medical College (NPMCN) (hereafter referred to as the Fellowship) and not the PhD, which according to some of the agitators, makes him unqualified for the job of LASU VC.

The discussion rapidly deteriorated into an outright belittling of the Fellowship qualification, portraying it as a substandard academic credential and its holders as second-tier scholars who ought to remain on the sidelines in matters of university leadership. To add salt to injury, an outdated draft circular from the NUC which was long since withdrawn, resurfaced; this document had inaccurately framed the Fellowship as inferior to a PhD in relation to the appointment and promotion of clinical lecturers in Nigerian universities. In the process, the candidate among the shortlisted individuals who held a Fellowship was unfairly cast as a pseudo-academic, while the qualification itself was disparaged as a mere stop-gap alternative for those either unable or unwilling to pursue a PhD.

Since then, Nigerian doctors practicing in Teaching hospitals have not known peace. What is the fate of the residency program? Is it deemed Inferior? Is it equivalent to the PhD? What is the natural path to career progression?

To fully understand the debate, we need to bring out the main issues: 1, Is the clinical residency that culminates in a fellowship the same as a PhD? 2, What qualification is required for medical doctors to teach medical students in universities? And lastly 3, What qualification is required for career progression?

The first question: Is the fellowship the same as a PhD? Absolutely not.

Fellowships in medicine are clinical, professional certifications for practicing as a consultant specialist, while a PhD is a research-focused, academic doctorate. While fellowships focus on clinical expertise, a PhD is essential for advanced university teaching and theoretical research. 

As a consultant physician who has undergone years of residency training (fellowship) and is currently enrolled in a PhD, I can tell you for free that the two are not the same. The level of rigor, tears and sweat that goes into obtaining a 5–6-year fellowship in Nigeria is not the same as a PhD. Depending on the specialty one chooses, residency takes a minimum in 4-7 years.

And that is for the aggressive, smart and ambitious ones amongst us. Years ago, people spent up to 10 years in the residency program. Go to Ibadan, write exams, fail and come back. Dust yourself, read again and return in six months. Fail and return again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

When I went for my part 1 exams in Ibadan, I remember calling my mother to deliver the news. ‘Mama, I passed’. Her reply: ‘You passed? Are you sure?’ Because in her world, nobody passes exams in Ibadan at first attempt. The exams are made exceptionally hard because a fellowship means you are an expert in a particular field of medicine.

The PhD degree in contrast, is less rigorous because it is more focused on research work, rather than clinical expertise. A PhD means you have the ability to carry out advanced research work and be labelled an ‘independent investigator’. Nobody is expecting you to save lives and so you are not held to the same level of scrutiny.

For simplicity, it is like this: If a patient has stomach cancer today,  a doctor with a fellowship in surgery can successfully remove the tumour and treat the patient. However, it may be the doctor that has a PhD that will eventually find a cure for that cancer due to years of research.

You get the point?

Medical doctors like to argue that the fellowship is the same as a PhD because a component of the fellowship is the dissertation. But as someone who has seen both, I put it you that the research in fellowship is not the same as the one in the PhD. The one in the PhD is more advanced.

The two are therefore completely different and prestigious in their own rights. Fellowships are for clinicians while PhD are for scientists/academics. And if you like ‘acada’ like I do, then you can do both.

Second question: What qualification is required for medical doctors to teach medical students in universities? I will answer with a short story.

In medical school, we were taught general surgery by renowned Professor Dili Dogo. This was a man who lived and breathed surgery. He would often brag that he could complete an appendectomy in fifteen minutes, a feat he showed us countless times. Early in the mornings, he would give us theoretical lectures and then proceed to demonstrate it practically in the theatre and clinic. We received  knowledge from someone who was a a master at his skill.

So now I ask: Who do you want to teach medical students? The doctor who knows the disease and how to treat it expertly or the doctor who knows how to carry out research on the subject?

Third question: What qualifications is required for career progression? Simple answer? Anyone.

The only reason we are having this debate is because a doctor dared to contest for the position of a Vice Chancellor. People started asking: Why should doctors become VCs? Can’t they be content with their CMD position? Why are these people so greedy?

We are not greedy. We simply want to be able to contest like other qualified individuals. The rationale that only a PhD holder can hold a VC leadership position does not hold water. The position of a VC does not require research capabilities or clinical acumen; all it requires is for one to possess critical thinking abilities, the necessary leadership experience of how a university is run and how to manage resources. Shikenan.

I hope with these few points of mine, that I have convinced you and not confused you, that the fellowship Vs PhD debate is just another egotistical timewasting exercise.

If so, doxology!