By John Odunjo
“The curriculum will also lead to exponential growth of the economy by arresting, possibly reversing medical tourism imports, by upgrading the quality and quantity of highly skilled healthcare professionals, products and services sufficiently to attract local high net-worth patients”
Hillside University of Science and Technology, Oke-Imesi, Ekiti State, is adopting the futuristic entrepreneurial model of Maranatha Institutes of Science and Technology (MiST) towards redirecting the dynamics of professional healthcare and technology education.
The Vice-Chancellor, Prof Iheanyichukwu Okoro, says such is also in furtherance of the need for academic institutions to equip their students with the relevant skills to remain competitive.
The VC says that the MiST integrated curriculum design is impact-structured to revitalize the national health security of Nigerians and the African continent as a whole.
He listed the health programmes of the institution to include Medicine, Anatomy, Audiology, Dentistry, Medical Laboratory Science, Nursing Sciences, Nutrition and Dietetics, Optometry, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Physiology are under the College of Health and Medical Sciences.
Maranatha Institute of Science & Technology (MiST) is characterised by an integrated national 6-2-4 year Clinical Capacity Development curriculum anchored on a hybrid teaching and mentorship platform that is powered by local and global clinical staff physically on campus, virtually online and alternately between local and global hospitals clinical residency rotations until Consultant Fellowships.
Okoro noted that “the curriculum will secure career hopes for a minimum of 350 talented and committed young Nigerians annually.
“The curriculum will allow a greater emotional and physical maturity process for young physicians and healthcare professionals, in whose hands are committed the lives of the entire nation,” he said.
The VC further observed that the MiST curriculum will create a structured corporate social responsibility opportunity for governments, individuals and industries to impact society through bonded sponsorship of promising young candidates from the lower rungs of society, whose great potentials, talents and impact may otherwise have been lost to the world.
Speaking on skills, the erudite scholar asserted that the MiST curriculum will close up the deadly gap in skills, personal income, development and career prospects, between the “left behind” but highly experienced but disillusioned career MO’s (Medical Officers) who are more vulnerable to either fatal clinical errors imposed by their knowledge, technology or skills deficit or the “JAPA” syndrome for the younger, brighter and more ambitious ones attracted by better personal development prospects and conditions of service abroad.
Other aims of the MiST curriculum, according to the VC, is to achieve the quantitative and qualitative upgrade of rural population healthcare provision standard nationwide through structured collaboration with public and private providers for an accelerated capacity expansion of physicians training and residency programs into the rural hinterland.
“The curriculum will also lead to exponential growth of the economy by arresting, possibly reversing medical tourism imports, by upgrading the quality and quantity of highly skilled healthcare professionals, products and services sufficiently to attract local high net-worth patients.
“MiST curriculum will produce an expanded industrial export supply capacity of high-quality physicians and other healthcare professionals, to gain a critical market share in the West-Central Africa subregion and the insatiable global demand,” Okoro said.
