MDCN resit for failed foreign-trained doctors sparks outrage

The Nigerian Medical Association has asked doctors around the country not to take part in re-sit examinations planned by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria for foreign-trained doctors who failed a previous assessment last December. Some 443 students who graduated medicine abroad failed the assessment, making them ineligible for practice licence in Nigeria. Their […]

The Nigerian Medical Association has asked doctors around the country not to take part in re-sit examinations planned by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria for foreign-trained doctors who failed a previous assessment last December.

Some 443 students who graduated medicine abroad failed the assessment, making them ineligible for practice licence in Nigeria.

Their failure dragged the MDCN, which regulates medicine and dentistry, into controversy, prompting the regulator to agree to a re-sit exam on February 28 at University of Abuja Teaching Hospital.

MDCN routinely mandates teaching hospitals and independent medical examiners to conduct the exam.

NMA said the notion of a re-sit is “embarrassing, an abnormal development that will cast a negative aspersion on the quality of MDCN to the Medical world.”

“Nowhere in the world [is] is a resit examination conducted for licensing fresh graduates, said NMA president Dr Mike Ogirima in a statement on Tuesday.

“NMA believes that the credibility of the Council is to the best interest of the general public and we intend to protect the integrity of our profession and practice.”

The other 249 students who passed the exam were inducted on February 14. Since then, NMA has maintained its stance to resist a resit.