Recently, the governor of Osun state sacked resident doctors because 'they had spent more than six years' at the LAUTECH teaching hospital Osogbo. The thing is I had a different idea of what residency is all about but based on the development, I'm confused. Someone should explain residency in relation to medicine in Nigeria.
Is residency a job?
If it is a job, is it temporary?
Are residents, doctors?
What are prospects of residency in Nigeria?

olakan22:
Recently, the governor of Osun state sacked resident doctors because 'they had spent more than six years' at the LAUTECH teaching hospital Osogbo. The thing is I had a different idea of what residency is all about but based on the development, I'm confused. Someone should explain residency in relation to medicine in Nigeria.
Is residency a job?
If it is a job, is it temporary?
Are residents, doctors?
What are prospects of residency in Nigeria?

why did he sack them? you didn't tell us.

residency is not a job but a training.

it is for intending doctors who want to be specialist in various field of medicine e.g gynaecology, psychiatry etc

residency training is a very important and integral part of training to become consultants and also to teach clinical students in the hospital.

Residency is the programme by which specialist doctors are trained. A doctor who wants to specialise wetter fresh out of school or several years later first takes an examination called the primary examination in the feild of his choice. If he passes he now applies for the position of a junior registrar in an accredited hospital to commence his residency. If he gets the job he starts working there under the supervision of a consultant or a group of consultants in his chosen feild. These people train him practically on the nitty gritty of that feild he wishes to practice.. when they determine he is fit, he is signed off to attempt exams in any postgraduate college that his centre has accreditation for. In Nigeria these are the National or West African PG colleges. If he passes he becomes a Senior Registrar at which level he is given even more responsibility and the degree of supervision by his consultants is reduced. Again when his supervisors deem him fit he can sit forpart 2 exams and if he passes becomes a fellow of that PG college and can now take on an appointment as a Consultant. The whole process can take anywhere from 4 to 10 years depending on the specialty. During this period they are temporary staff of the hospital who take external exams with the PG colleges.

It's the government's prerogative to sack and appoint but all this affects the running of the hospital. A single Consultant can run a department and see 100s of patients if he has 5 ,6 or more residents. But when you get rid of those residents he can see a very limited number of patients. Senior registrars and even more expirienced junior registrars train their junior collegue, when a vacuum is created at any level it affects the effective training of junior collegues. It has been found that candidates from centres with full complement of residents do better in exams than those where they are just a few esepically if they are all junior. Also Consultants usually do not like working in centres with few residents because they are forced to do the jobs of junior doctors along with their own.

I believe the future of residency in this country will be in private practice. Already some private hospitals have gotten accreditation and the trend is growing. Unfortunately the poor who benefit from the large workforce in government teaching hospitals will be the loosers unless the National health Insurance Scheme is reworked to give proper cover that will allow them seek care from these private hospitals. An example is Eye foundation in Ikeja Lagos.