The guidelines on Registration for Medical and Dental Practitioners in Nigeria require all newly graduated Medical and Dental practitioners to complete twelve (12) months uninterrupted Housemanship training from any of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) accredited Housemanship training centers to be eligible to Full Registration.
However and over the years this requirement has remained a nightmare as a large number of fresh Medical and Dental graduates roam the streets in endless search for placements for house jobs. The regulation for provisional registration allows for completion of the house job within a period of two years and where this is not achievable for valid reasons, Council may grant one (1) year extension after which the Medical Practitioner/Dental surgeon will be required to write assessment examination to re-establish his competence to practice.
This situation sometimes made it impossible to obtain eligibility for full registration and as such unable to be of service to the country or elsewhere. In order to arrest this situation, the Federal Ministry of Health through the then Minister of Health, intervened by presenting a memorandum to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for the centralized posting, payments and coordination of Medical and Dental House Officers training by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN). That memo was graciously considered and approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the 16th of June 2017. However, implementation could not commence until 2021.
The exercise took effect from 1st January, 2021 with forty-two (42) Federal Government owned Hospitals, excluding Hospitals owned by the Armed Forces, Police, and States & FCT and privately owned Hospitals.
The MDCN developed a portal for the ease of postings and payments which was deployed for use on 1st April, 2021 and has since been very functional.