INTRODUCTION:

IMG stands for International Medical Graduate. This blog is targeted at Students (mostly Nigerian) who are currently studying or hope to study Medicine abroad.

Hello, Theodore (call me Tio in your head) here. I studied in Ukraine, so my experiences are going to be based on those gotten from Ukraine. Yes i speak Russian well enough and i graduated June 20, 2013 (to answer some 'obvious' questions)

I guess i can go on introducing myself....

Well the idea behind this is to relate my experiences to you as a student aspiring for a career in medicine. I have passed through the six years and i'm currently in the MDCN training thing (which you will do if you plan to be registered in Nigeria after you graduate).

The idea is...i flew blind, i could be referred to as the test subject and i've decided to write this blog hoping somebody somewhere who has no 'connections' (like me) will find it useful in the years to come.

I call it diary because i hope to relate my experiences to you (both past and present) as time goes by.

Welcome to my blog....

The MDCN Parol...

YES i was saying that if you plan to be registered in Nigeria as a Medical Doctor, you have to face the exam of the MEDICAL AND DENTAL COUNCIL OF NIGERIA. Sounds big huh? well reserve your opinion till you get to their office in Lagos (maybe their office in Abuja is tush ooh).

The website is www.mdcnigeria.org ...there you will find most of the information although the person that designed the website did not have you the confused IMG in mind (#just saying).

The MDCN program usually should start in July (or ending June) and last till November. Exams are on the 2nd and 3rd of October. So the earlier your University releases you, the better. Lectures and Tutorials kick off - two weeks each for Pediatrics, Surgery, Obs&Gyn and Medicine (one week lectures, one week hospital stuff). Other minor courses like Community Health, Anesthesiology, Clinical Pathology, Psychiatry, Microbiology, Hematology, Pharmacology, Morbid Anatomy and Radiology should be like 3 days each.

All this greatly depends on which Teaching hospital in Nigeria you end up in. We are currently in LUTH  and this is the format we are facing. It might be slightly different for you. You might wanna be looking up on the website for which center you are going to write in once your time reaches.

Here's some advice: After Krok and GOSD (for Ukraine Students) Party wellaz like a boss for like 2-3 days then get back on your jacking grind. Why? because if you think Krok and Gosd were tension then you ain't seen nothing (#just saying)

In Nigeria they will attempt to orientate you about issues pertinent to Nigerian medicine, and since Obs&Gyn is really huge in Nigeria, you will get a whooper of it. 

SECRET: I avoided Obs&Gyn throughout my Med skl days...i didn't know anything in it till i came back here...no joke. So you don't wanna go down that road, trust me. I still won't do Obs&Gyn specialty but at least i appreciate it much more.

Here's another advice: Make sure you get adequate exposure to your major courses because if you don't, you might find it hard to keep up over here, because Nigerian method is based on lectures but in Ukraine we had the Class system and less lectures (except the model has changed)

to be continued in........The MDCN parol II.