The University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo State, has partnered with the West African College of Physicians (WACP) in order to train medical doctors for a PhD in clinical studies.
Disclosing this, the National Chairman and Vice President of WACP, Dr. Jeremiah Madanaki, said the partnership with UNIMED will provide skills that will be complementary to the professional training of medical doctors in Nigeria in particular and West Africa in general.
Madanaki, who stressed that WACP was a specialised agency of the West African Health Organisations charged with the responsibility of training postgraduate medical doctors, revealed that the institution trained doctors in six specialties: family medicine, community health, laboratory medicine, external medicine, psychiatry, and paediatrics.
He said, “We already have what we called the fellowship programme, which is the professional training of the doctors to allow those human resources to provide high-quality services.
“What we seek in the PhD in Clinical Studies is to look at those complementary skills that could actually further enhance what we do as professional doctors.”
On his part, the Vice Chancellor of UNIMED, Prof. Adesegun Fatusi, stated that the institution has the human resources as well as infrastructure to embark on the programme.
According to Fatusi, “UNIMED is the first university that WACP is signing this MOU with. In a world where there is a greater drive for science research components, that is where this complementary partnership is coming in, and we are very ready as a university because we have the resources in terms of human resources and infrastructure.
“I want to say that we have also started test-running this because we have the pilot programme. We are proudly again the only university in West Africa to have signed a partnership with the West Africa College of Surgeons, which is the brother of WACP.
“WACP is coming in just to deepen, strengthen, and broaden what we are doing. The advantage of this partnership is that if people come to do this postgraduate work, they don’t need to rely on just our own staff to be their supervisor; we are bringing in all the expertise that is available in WACP to support this. It is beyond what you can get at any university because of the unique partnership and strength that we are bringing in and the wild dimensions of experience and expertise that are going to come with this partnership.
“It is a partnership like none and a partnership that will drive the health professionals in Nigeria forward, and everyone will be a winner, not just in our university and in WACP, but also in our nation and entire countries across West Africa.”
