Early career doctor

In Nigeria, an early career doctor (ECD) is a medical or dental practitioner in the early phase of their professional career post-graduation. This includes house officers, resident doctors and medical officers below the rank of principal medical/dental officer (PMO/PDO).[1] This term is more widely used in Nigeria compared to the junior doctor in the United Kingdom and Australia. Although Junior Doctors may seem synonymous with ECDs, ECDs embraces more cadres of doctors than junior doctors especially as it is in the UK or Australia. They may be engaged in training or non-training position at this point in their professional development.[1][2] Those in training positions while rendering service include House physician or house surgeon and resident doctors. While medical officers and senior medical officers or the dentistry categories are in the non-training position. Generally, this period usually spans about the start of a career to fifteen years depending on the path an early career doctor chose for their professional development.[3]

History of nomenclature

The term ECDs recently had a surge in popularity especially with the use of the term in the Challenges of Residency Training and Early Career Doctors in Nigeria(CHARTING) study which is a large multi-centre and multidisciplinary study in Nigeria to explore ECDs related themes.[4] Also in recent publications by NARD.

The earliest use of the term in literature was by Milne et al. in 2013.[5] Interestingly it was the United Kingdom where term such as Junior doctors is more pervasive. While the later also occasionally used in Australia and in these two locations are essentially describing medical trainees whether interns or residents doctors and excludes dental practitioners.

Unionism

The overarching organisation of ECDs in Nigeria is the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors(NARD) which was formerly called National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria(NARD), an affiliate of Nigerian Medical Association(NMA).[6] It has 74 branches domiciled mainly in Federally and State-owned Teaching Hospitals, Specialist Hospitals and Public health institutions of the Federal Capital Territory.

Training

There are two postgraduate medical colleges involve in the training of resident doctors in Nigeria. They are the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria(NPMCN)which wholly Nigerian and the West African Postgraduate Medical College(West African College of Physicians and West African College of Surgeons) which covers the West African region. Such training are provided by fellows of these colleges in the accredited training institutions(about 80) mainly secondary and tertiary health centres spread across Nigeria.

References
  1. Adebayo O, Fagbule O, Omololu A, Ibrahim Y, Isibor E, Olaopa O, Ude A, Buowari D, Efuntoye O, Igbokwe M, Kpuduwei S, Ogunsuji O. (2019). We are Early Career Doctors We are NARD. ISBN 978 978 57185 3 9
  2. Igbokwe Martin, Babalola Ibisola, & Adebayo Oladimeji. (2019) CHARTING Study: A Trainee Collaborative Research Study. Junior Doctors Network Newsletter, (October 2019), 23-24.
  3. Onuwabuchi E, Omololu A, Grillo E, Ekundayo O, Adeniyi MA, Ogunsuji OO, et al. Letter to the editor: the demographic profile of the Nigeria early career doctors. Yen Med J 2020;2(1):1-4.
  4. https://nardrcn.com.ng/about-us/. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. Milne, Jacqueline; Greenfield, David; Braithwaite, Jeffrey (4 July 2015). "An ethnographic investigation of junior doctors' capacities to practice interprofessionally in three teaching hospitals". Journal of Interprofessional Care. 29 (4): 347–353. doi:10.3109/13561820.2015.1004039.
  6. "NIGERIAN ASSOCIATION OF RESIDENT DOCTORS". NIGERIAN ASSOCIATION OF RESIDENT DOCTORS. NIGERIAN ASSOCIATION OF RESIDENT DOCTORS. Retrieved 2 September 2020.

Bibliography

We are Early Career Doctors We are NARD. ISBN 978 978 57185 3 9

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