Nigeria will not accept medical and dental degrees from Ukrainian universities obtained from 2022, the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) has said.
“We wish to inform the general public that medical and dental certificates issued by Ukrainian medical colleges from 2022 will NOT be recognized by the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council until normal academic activities are resumed,” the governing council the medical profession in Nigeria said in a statement posted on its official Twitter account.
The decision is due to the ongoing war in Ukraine which has caused the closure of many of its higher institutions for physical classes. However, many of them continue to teach classes online, something MDCN is against for medical and dental programs.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Council categorically states that online medical training conducted anywhere in the world is below acceptable standard and is not recognized by the MDCN,” he said.
The council advised students currently studying medicine or dentistry at medical schools in Ukraine to seek transfer to other accredited institutions in other countries to complete their programs.
Nigerian evacuees from Ukraine mourn
PREMIUM TIMES reported how hundreds of Nigerian students were evacuated from Ukraine as the Russian invasion began.
Some of the returnees, affected by MDCN’s position, have condemned it.
Esther Ebiru, who graduated from Dnipro Medical State Ukraine in June in an online graduation ceremony, called MDCN’s policy inhumane.
“This policy is inhumane. It’s devastating because we don’t study online for six years, it’s only a few months in 2020 because of Covid that happened all over the world and the remaining three months,” he told PREMIUM TIMES.
“I am clearly devastated and tired. I can’t imagine waiting for this war to end or restart again.
“I finished high school pretty early, I joined the RSSDA scholarship two years after high school. I wrote all the necessary exams. They promised me to start medicine in Germany.
“My parents even stepped up to pay for German classes. The scholarship was later canceled due to political instability in Rivers State at the time. My parents had to fight to make my medical dreams come true and send me to Ukraine,” said Ms. Ebiru.
According to her, she dropped out of high school more than 10 years ago “only for me to go back to the same limiting policy. It seems that the Nigerian government and the environment do not want it to go any further.”
Ms. Ebiru said that, unlike in Nigeria, her colleagues in Ghana and the UK continue to pursue their dreams with no problem.
She told PREMIUM TIMES that in an attempt to familiarize herself with the medical environment in Nigeria, when she returned to the country in March, she paid for a clinical bond that began in April.
“I did a month of gynecology and a month of pediatrics. I am now in internal medicine, which I opted for two weeks because I decided that by July 11 I would register for the MDCN exam tutorials before this news broke last Friday,” he said.
Another returned medical student who sought anonymity rhetorically asked this reporter how a six-year program can be canceled due to three months of electives taken online.
“I was shocked to read MDCN’s insensitive advertorial discrediting our medical degrees from Ukraine, China and other unspecified countries and thus denying us the opportunity to practice in our country,” he said.
MDCN reaffirms position
When contacted, MDCN registrar Tajudeen Sanusi said the council’s position was to protect Nigerians.
“Tell me anywhere in the world where they are studying medicine online. When you have your lectures in the classroom, you go to the hospital which is the most important thing…”, she said.
When this reporter reminded him that the online classes were in the wake of the war in Ukraine, he asked again: “Was there no war in Sierra Leone and Liberia before? Why didn’t they study online there?
“We have made provisions for whoever wants to transfer to the university of Nigeria medical school, so why do they do it online? Do you want to endanger the health of Nigerians and other people living in this country? I won’t do that,” Sanusi said.
Asked by this reporter to shed more light on the provision to enroll returnees in medical colleges in Nigeria, he said, “I am not the one who will call them, they are the ones who should apply.”
He pointed out that students must apply to medical schools and if the institutions have vacancies, they can enroll.
“When the students went, did they tell anyone?… Did they tell me they were going somewhere? Do I have your record that they are somewhere? Sanusi asked rhetorically.