Medical Education in Nigeria: Status and travails of medical publications

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the level of healthcare delivery in a society is directly related to the amount of research and dissemination of research information. Journals are a veritable tool in driving research and in continuing medical education..Fundamental tenet of academia is an obligation to disseminate acquired knowledgeJournal publications rank very high in the hierarchy of sources for decisions on healthcare funding, research endeavours and patient carePrevious studies have alluded to the underdeveloped CME and poor reading culture among Nigerian doctors. A review of the role of Nigerian medical publications in world literature shows a level probably similar to our Health status indices with poor per capita contribution to world knowledge. Only 9 journals published within Nigeria are in PUBMED with 8 having 2010 articles. Of the 45 Medical journals listed in AJOL from Nigeria only 12 have any articles in 2010. A review of causes implicated the following poor funding, poor infrastructure, poor distribution systems, poor institutional support and sharp author and editorial practices. Remedial factors highlighted included institutional commitment to philosophy of research and publications, institutional review boards and measures to eliminate common author-associated fraudulent practices like
plagiarism, duplicate publication, salami slicing and others. Editor / reviewer/ author training programs should be instituted. The use of current technology like etBLAST, Cross-Ref, Plagiarism checker, Google scholar and others to check widespread author sharp practices are recommended.

Keyword: medical education, medical publications, Nigeria