Strengthening the level of entrepreneurial education of Nigerian doctors by increasing their capacity to see the breadth of opportunities through mentoring that brings professional and financial reward has been mooted as a solution to the spate of brain drain in the country.
The Medical Director of Nordica Fertility Centre, Lagos, Asaba and Abuja, Dr Abayomi Ajayi who gave the assertion in Lagos recently, said the brain drain in the medical/healthcare sector should be of tremendous concern to all Nigerians as a people.
Ajayi who is the Founder/Creator of the novel Dr Abayomi Ajayi Mentoring Programme, said the ordinary Nigerian would only continue to suffer if Nigeria is strengthening the healthcare delivery systems of foreign countries to the detriment of its own.
Speaking recently during the inauguration of the 2nd part of the mentorship programme, Ajayi recalled that during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, at that time an average of 20 doctors left the shores of Nigeria weekly to the UK, the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa to mention a few.
“Upon observation, the reason for this is clear. The cost of training a doctor in Nigeria, especially through our public medical school system is relatively cheap compared to the cost of training a doctor in most of the countries our doctors emigrate to. “Therefore, Nigeria is supplying top rate professionals to the world at a cheaper cost, strengthening their healthcare delivery systems to the detriment of our own. Who suffers? The ordinary Nigerian who is probably unable to afford private healthcare, especially in rural areas.
“In my experience as a trained Nigerian medical professional, I observed that the major weakness in our doctors is a dearth in entrepreneurial education. That is, the capacity to see the breadth of opportunities that brings professional and financial reward.
He said in a country like Nigeria with myriad of challenges in healthcare, Nigerian doctors are meant to be extremely successful if they apply entrepreneurship skills.
“That is exactly what the Dr. Abayomi Ajayi Mentoring Programme seeks to do: change the mindset of our doctors and hopefully stem the brain-drain by proverbially teaching them how to fish instead of giving them fish.
“Through the mentoring model, we expose young Nigerian doctors to the wealth of experience of successful Nigerians in different fields of industry to equip them with the expertise needed to build successful enterprises, and to help build a robust healthcare system in Nigeria.
According to Ajayi, the first edition was a huge success, with the 12 mentees attesting to how much they were greatly impacted by the series of training and mentor-sharing sessions.
Vanguard News Nigeria