The University of Medical Sciences, Laje, Ondo State, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the West African College of Physicians for the commencement of its postgraduate programmme.
The partnership, it was gathered, would help deepen and strengthen the academic impacts of the institution on its postgraduate studies.
At the signing of the MoU, on Friday, UNIMED’s Vice Chancellor, Prof Adesegun Fatusi, explained that the university was the first to have such a partnership with the West African College of Physicians (WACP) and that the university was well-prepared and ready for the partnership as they have the necessary human and infrastructural resources needed.
According to him, the partnership would allow students to be supervised by experts in their specialities across WACP.
He said, “In a world where there is a greater drive for science research component, 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 infrastructural resources.
“UNIMED is the first university that WACP is signing this MoU with, the curriculum to implement this is ready based on the NUC criteria and I want to say that we have also started test-running this because we have the pilot programme, we have rolled out the PhD programme and we have over 50 students. The WACP is coming in just to deepen, to strengthen and to broaden what we are doing.
“The advantage of this partnership is that if people come to do this postgraduate programme, they don’t need to rely on just our staff to be their supervisor, we are bringing in all the expertise that is available in WACP, to support this, so if you are a student here doing your PhD programme, anyone in your speciality across WACP, can supervise you”.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the WACP, Jeremiah Madaki, disclosed that their partnership with UNIMED will provide complementary skills to doctors to enhance their performance.
“The partnership we sought with the University of Medical Sciences here is going to provide a PhD that will make available a set of skills that are complementary to the professional training of medical doctors in Nigeria in particular and West Africa in general.
“We already have what we call the fellowship program which is the professional training of the doctors to allow those human resources to provide high-quality services, so what we seek in the PhD is to look at those complementary skills that could further enhance what we do as professional doctors” Madaki stated.
