What You Should Know If You Must Study Medicine and Surgery is discussed in this article and we hope you find it helpful.
Benefits of Studying Medicine
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If you ask any child in Nigeria what type of profession he or she will take to in life, at least eight out of ten will mention the medical profession. It is one profession most children have a fantasy about at one time or the other in their youth.
If you probe further into the reason behind their idea, you are likely to receive any of these reasons; they cherish the glamour associated with being called a doctor, this is a profession in which the pay or the remuneration is quite comfortable, this is a profession that they want to help their fellow human beings.
What You Should Know If You Must Study Medicine and Surgery
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Medicine may be simply defined as the science of the prevention and cure of disease. Medicine is a scientific subject and millions of people who desire to study medicine must have an aptitude for science subjects in secondary school to be able to study medicine.
The most important subjects a student needs to pay much attention to are mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and of course the English language.
The student will be required to obtain at least a credit in each of the above subjects in the West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) or Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE).
After this stage, you can sit for the JAMB examination for admission into any of the universities to study medicine. When you are finally admitted to the university to study medicine, your success or otherwise in the course depends on how serious and sincere you are with yourself.
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The medical course is divided into three stages that more or less lead to three different professional examinations. These are the first professional, second professional, and third professional examinations. These examinations are further grouped into pre-clinical and clinical periods.
The pre-clinical period lasts for two years. During this period, the subjects offered are physiology, biochemistry, and anatomy. It is at the end of the two years that you sit for the first professional examination otherwise incongruously called the Second MB.
The clinical period lasts for three years within which you will sit for the two remaining professional examinations. This is also the period a medical student actually comes in close contact with patients.
This occurs during his clinical posting to the different specialized clinical subjects. During this period, the subjects offered are microbiology, pharmacology, and pathology, particularly, clinical pathology.
The study of those subjects enables the student to sit for the second professional examination, also incongruously called the first MB.
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If you are successful with the second professional examination, you move on to the last two clinical years which are purely clinical work.
During this period, the student will be posted on a rotator basis to all the following subjects; surgery, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry, etc.
You will be recycled through all the above departments and many more until you are ready to sit for the final examination, which is called the third professional examination.
A student is awarded the degree of bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery, the coveted MBBS once he is successful in the third professional examination.
This may surprise you that though you have the degree, you are still not permitted to practice on your own, this is highly prohibited.
You can only do so after spending at least one year under the close supervision of a consultant in all the major disciplines embodied in medicines, this is called a period of internship.
Finally, when you are certified as proficient by a chief consultant, you can now register with the Nigeria Medical Council to practice the science of Medicine.
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Conclusively after this license registration, this is compulsory for you to service your father’s land (if your nationality is Nigeria) through the National Youth Service Corps Programme.
Then depending on your objectives and ambition in life, you may either choose to practice in a government institution or a private hospital.
