DENTISTS ARE ELIGIBLE TO APPLY FOR RESIDENCY IN OBSTETRICS AND PAEDIATRICS

This article is to dispel the idea that National Postgraduate Medical College is divided into medical and dental parts. This misconception of the law has led to the tradition where dentists only pursue dental surgery extensions at the postgraduate level while medical practitioners occupy the extended medical areas at the postgraduate levels. This is a legal and reality fallacy.

The spirit of the legislation of the National Medical College Act is not to create another dual professions of medicine and dentistry. That is not the spirit, the intendment and the literary meaning of the College Act. For the avoidance of doubt, the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act created two different professions called medicine and dentistry, while the National Postgraduate Medical College created specializations in the field of medicine. That is why it was called National Medical College Act, and not National Medical and Dental College Act.

All the specializations in the National Medical College are open to all the medical and dental practitioners equally. To qualify as a candidate for residency in any field of medicine at the postgraduate level, all you need is a medical or a dental certificate. These certificates do not categorize the candidates into any particular field according to the extant laws. A medical practitioner could go ahead and write primary in dental surgery while a dentist could go ahead and write primary in Paediatrics. The baseline qualification, according to the extant laws in Nigeria, is the medical or dental qualification. Period.

It must be noted that this position of the law cannot be changed by the National Postgraduate Medical College by regulations. This is because regulations are not superior to the law. The new Medical Residency Training Act is emphatic on the requirements for the admission into residency training program. The requirements are uniform and there is no dichotomy.

The entry point into the residency training has a common pathway which is writing Primary exam. The requirements for Primary exam is statutorily the same for every candidate be he medical or dental practitioner. These requirements have been stated as the following:

"1. Passport Photograph
2. Basic Medical or Dental Degree Certificate
3. NYSC Discharge or Exemption from NYSC Certificate/Letter ..........."

The only determining factor of the area of specialization chosen by the candidate is therefore his choice of area of specialization once the candidate is wielding a medical or dental qualification. The Residency Training Act is very clear and emphatic on that. So, there is no ambiguity.

Section 10 of the National Medical College Act only dealt with Part 1 and Part 2 candidates. It did not mention neither was it intended to regulate Primary admission exams. The section reads:

10. Where a candidate offers himself for examination under this Act he shall satisfy the appropriate Faculty Board-
(a)    that he is a registered medical practitioner or dental surgeon, as the case may be, so however that if the candidate is on the temporary register he may be examined only by leave of the Senate given either generally or as a special case; and
(b)    that he is in possession of and is therein named as the holder of a certificate from an institution recognised by the College showing that he has satisfactorily attended the prescribed course of training in the particular speciatised branch and for the prescribed period of the course.

In fact, the National Medical College Act did not provide for the entry into residency training program. It only provided for examinations for those who are already there in the training. How these people arrived into the programs was not captured in the law. This position of the author of this article is reinforced by the long title of the National Medical College Act which states:

"An Act to establish a National Medical College to be charged with the responsibility of conducting examinations in the various specialised branches of medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology and dental surgery and other related matters".

It is thus clear that the college was empowered to conduct examinations IN THE VARIOUS SPECIALIZED BRANCHES. The Residency Training Act came in to fill the vacuum created by the National Medical College Act on admission into Residency Training.

Section 4 of the Medical Residency Training Act stated that candidates wielding MBBS and BDS are eligible to be admitted into the programmes. Note specifically the plural in "programmes". Once the candidate has the requirements, he is eligible to any of the programmes irrespective of the undergraduate certification in medicine or dentistry. It is like any other postgraduate education. Once you have met the requirements, it did not matter that the candidate is a dentist or a doctor. By this arrangement, all the specializations of medicine at the postgraduate level are equally open to the dentist, just like all specializations in dentistry are open to the medical practitioner.

The important thing to note here however is that postgraduate medical training does not change the undergraduate qualification.

Awkadigwe Fredrick Ikenna
awkadigweikenna@gmail.com
08039555380