Joe Dinga Pefok
21 April 2008
The National Medical Council has resolved to test all medical doctors trained out of Cameroon, in the hope of weeding out quacks and impostors.
Some 500 of them out of 5,498 registered members, who attended the 21st General Assembly, which held in Douala recently, signed the resolution which instituted the compulsory test.
The doctors appeared divided over the resolution, which states that medical doctors trained outside Cameroon will, henceforth, have to be tested by the National Medical Council, before obtaining authorisation to practise here.
The decision also targets foreign medical doctors coming to practise in Cameroon.
A medical doctor, who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity, disagreed with the resolution, arguing that he finds it irrational to ask a qualified medical doctor to be tested before he or she can practise medicine in Cameroon.
He saw that as some sort of humiliation to colleagues coming from abroad.
A Verification Procedure
Another medical practitioner, Dr. George Traster Assam, of Laquintinie Hospital, hailed the resolution, arguing that it is normal for someone who leaves his country or his base to practise in another country to respect the laid down rules and regulations in that country to obtain authorisation to practise.
Assam said the test by the Cameroon National Medical Council will be a verification procedure, to see if the person in question is qualified to practise as a medical doctor.
He refuted claims that such a practice is humiliating to foreign medical doctors.
Going by him, such a practice would help to separate the bad grains from the good ones and thus restore the good image of qualified foreign medical doctors.Assam said there are cases of some medical staff who were nurses back in their countries, but when they got to Cameroon they claimed to be medical doctors.
He also explained that the Cameroon law states that the Minister of Public Health has to grant authorisation for medical doctors to practise in Cameroon and the Medical Council is supposed to express its opinion about the competence of the person in question before the Minister makes the decision.
One other resolution adopted by the General Assembly was that medical doctors should henceforth be evaluated after every five years. This will be to ensure that doctors practising in Cameroon maintain a high degree of competence, while quacks are sent out of work.
Medical Malpractices
The theme of this year's General Assembly of the Medical Council was: The Medical Practitioner and the Law.Speaking at the opening ceremony, the President of the Cameroon National Medical Council, Dr. Daniel Muna, said the theme was to sensitise medical doctors not only on their rights and responsibilities within the Cameroonian law, but as well on the rights of their patients.
Dr. Muna, among other things, frowned at the fact that quacks had been allowed to invade the profession and expressed the wish for the new measures to put an end to their activities in Cameroon.
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