Re: Prof Fadahunsi
Dear Respondent,
My sincere gratitude to you for your understanding... Your counsel is golden and appreciated.
In life, we all as mere mortals are bound to err.
Errors must be forgiven...so long as they are honest and unintentional...and erring persons are contrite and ready to make amends!
The cited professor was needlessly adamant. And there were others like him:
For instance:
Dr Ejiro Emuveyan now a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology (O&G), but then a senior lecturer had a mandate to mark multiple choice question (MCQ) scripts. He asked a House Officer to accompany him to the "computer centre".
After the machine kept scoring several candidates below 20%, they became suspicious and extracted one script for manual marking. A score in excess of 60% was observed!
They returned other scripts to the machine to mark. Low marks again....across board.
The concerned House Officer kept begging Emuveyan to report the fault and halt the marking. Emuveyan yelled at him to behave himself or he would deal with him!
Now of what use is a faulty machine that dispenses marks so indiscriminately as to fail good candidates....or indeed pass bad ones!
I hope Emuveyan sues me!
I have kept a tab on that House Officer ever since. He may be subpoenaed to testify in court!
And there was Julius Olukayode Esho, another professor....of surgery who failed the WHOLE "bunch" of students writing surgery for the second time. He called them "dead wood"....for not passing the exam at first attempt!
Now, we all know what exams are...especially when automated marking machines become faulty, are not repaired....and allocate marks at random!
Why did Esho bother to set the exam if he knew beforehand, that his mind was made up to fail ALL CANDIDATES!
And the Academic Board of the College of Medicine as well as the Senate of the University of Lagos allowed him to get away with it!
Those are just some of the instances....leading me to suggest that some of us are "misfortune-prone"....at the risk of being labelled paranoid!
TO ANOTHER RESPONDENT.
Thank God you confirm that you had a similar experience in Paedtrics.
You also confirm that medical education in Nigeria is "inhumane".
To you, any mention of the fact is "insulting".
And may I ask what solutions you proffer to bullying by medical trainers?
Or to exams that may not discriminate between good and bad candidates?
Other climes impose firm sanctions on trainers who are bullies. They fling them out of the system!
Besides, the professor in question was impervious to correction! His error was not a honest error! He was never subsequently contrite....till death!
Dead good persons must be honoured....
In the same vein, dead bad actions must not be ignored and deprived of solutions merely because their doers are dead! Or we would just be given to vain sentiment....
Your latest comment "doubts the veracity of my tale"....yet you confirm, just as Michael did, that "you also had a similar experience in pediatrics and that medical education in Nigeria is inhumane". Must you be so inconsistent just that you may win a debate?
You are incredulous...really! Why so much ado about mentioning the infractions of an intentional doer of evil...who did not bother to be contrite until his death....except you are merely given to dogma....premised on "insult to teachers"?!
As to exposure on social media, past experience has shown that reports made to medical bodies are often ignored...a mere waste of time!
This is the only language they understand!
Besides, brutish medical trainers breed harsh doctors who inflict such saddism on weaker vessels....trainees and patients! Patients are of the public domain...so the public is a stakeholder in the "humaneness"....or otherwise....of medical teachers and the empathy coefficient of the doctors they breed!
Dr Tosin Akindele is a medical practitioner and public affairs analyst.