By Blessing Eloghene
The National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria, NPMCN, will today confer postgraduate qualifications on over 537 Fellows and other graduates, as the institution also unveils its newly established Faculty of Radiation and Clinical Oncology.
The College President, Prof. Anthony Ikefuna, disclosed this yesterday at a press conference ahead of the 2026 convocation scheduled for today, Thursday, September 17, at the College premises.
Ikefuna said the convocation would mark the completion of specialist training for hundreds of medical and dental doctors and provide an opportunity to recognise their contribution to healthcare delivery.
“We have over 537 fellows,” he said, while noting that the final number was still being reconciled.
He explained that about 400 candidates were expected to receive Fellowship qualifications, while others would receive Doctor of Medicine and diploma qualifications.
“For the Doctor of Medicine, which I told you is an academic thing, we have 59. And the Diploma, nine,” he said.
According to Ikefuna, Fellowship represents the highest tier of postgraduate qualification awarded by the College, with successful candidates becoming specialists in their respective fields.
“Anybody that is tomorrow as a Fellow, is a specialist. They must have gone through the six-year training,” he said.
He added that the specialist training could sometimes take longer than six years, depending on the programme and individual circumstances.
The College President said the graduates would subsequently join the specialist workforce, with Fellows qualified to serve as consultants in their respective areas of expertise.
New faculty targets cancer care
The 2026 convocation also comes with the establishment of the College’s newest academic unit, the Faculty of Radiation and Clinical Oncology, created to provide in-depth specialist training in cancer care.
Ikefuna said the faculty would focus on the use of ionising radiation and medicines in the treatment of cancer, while also strengthening research into emerging therapies.
“We have now found a faculty to go in-depth. Not that they were not doing it before. They were under a faculty before, but we have separated them to in-depth knowledge in management of cancer care,” he said.
He disclosed that the College planned to expose specialists to global developments in cancer treatment, including immunotherapy, and encourage research into how such advances could be applied to improve cancer care in Nigeria.
“We want them, not only to study, they are going to do an in-depth research on some of the things we can do using the things we see globally, immunotherapy and the rest of that, to see how we can use it to improve cancer care in this country,” he said.
The new faculty, however, has not started producing graduates because of its recent establishment.
“Those ones, it’s a new faculty so they have not started graduating,” Ikefuna said.
College aligns training with emerging diseases
Ikefuna said the establishment of the faculty reflected the College’s approach of reviewing postgraduate medical training in line with emerging health challenges.
He said the College also reviews its curricula periodically to ensure that specialist training remains relevant to the needs of the country.
“Every curriculum has a lifespan. And that lifespan can range between three and five,” he said.
According to him, the College’s academic structures scrutinise proposed curriculum changes before they are approved.
The NPMCN currently has 17 faculties covering medicine and dentistry, including Anaesthesia, Dental Surgery, Family Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Otorhinolaryngology, Paediatrics, Pathology, Psychiatry, Public Health and Community Medicine, and the new Radiation and Clinical Oncology faculty.
Nigeria lacks enough specialist doctors
Ikefuna also acknowledged the shortage of doctors in Nigeria, saying the country remains far from the recommended doctor-to-population ratio.
“You and I know that we don’t have enough doctors in this country. Just yesterday I was with MDCN. The standard is one to 10,000, and we are far, far, far away from that,” he said.
He identified migration of trained health professionals abroad as another challenge, saying economic factors were among the reasons doctors leave the country.
“Whether we like it or not, the Japa syndrome is a problem. A lot of our people are leaving,” Ikefuna said.
Part of it is economic. Mainly economic
He said some doctors who previously travelled abroad for short training programmes and returned to Nigeria were now choosing to remain overseas.
“Before this time they were leaving, you go for a programme six months and come back. Many of them are not returning. So we need to address that issue,” he said.
Ikefuna said mentorship remained one of the strategies the College was using to encourage young doctors to pursue specialist training.
“We keep reminding ourselves that we are role models. Some of us went into this art because our trainers, we saw characters which we want to emulate,” he said.
The 2026 convocation will also feature the conferment of Distinguished Fellowship on four senior Fellows recognised for their contributions to medical practice, education, administration and the development of the College.
The NPMCN, established in 1979, is responsible for postgraduate medical and dental training, examinations, certification, accreditation of residency training centres and continuing professional development for specialists in Nigeria.
