Health
Expert Advocates Leadership Training For Doctors
By Bushrah Yusuf-Badmus
A Professor of Urological Surgery and Consultant Urologist, Prof. Sulyman Kuranga, has called for deliberate preparation of doctors for leadership and managerial responsibilities, rather than merely promoting them based on clinical competence and experience.
Kuranga made the call at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Ilorin Emirates Medical Doctors’ Group (IEMDG) and its Annual General Meeting, where members also elected new executive officers.
He said the measure was imperative to bridge persistent leadership and management gaps within Nigeria’s healthcare system, noting that doctors increasingly occupied strategic positions requiring administrative and governance competencies across institutions.
The former Head, Urology Unit, Department of Surgery, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), said Nigeria’s health system remained strained, with 76 per cent expenditure borne directly by patients through out-of-pocket payments.
He said Nigeria’s healthcare ecosystem had changed significantly, while medical training remained largely unchanged, leaving many doctors inadequately prepared for the leadership and management responsibilities increasingly required across institutions nationwide.
“There are 55,000 doctors in practice in Nigeria in 2025, which is 16.9 per cent down from 66,241 in 2024. We have more than 16,000 doctors that migrated between 2017 and 2023.
“The people asked to repair these are us.
“We have doctors leading the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), state ministries of health, hospital management boards and teaching hospitals, yet management was never in our curriculum.”
Kuranga said existing leadership deficiencies were already manifesting through drug stock-outs, poor data management, demotivated personnel and failed accreditation exercises, adding that the situation required urgent and sustained corrective action.
The former Chief Medical Director of UITH said clinical excellence, though essential, was insufficient on its own to prepare doctors adequately for leadership and managerial responsibilities within complex healthcare organisations nationwide.
According to him, three critical gaps require urgent attention: absence of a leadership curriculum, lack of a structured career pathway for doctor-managers and perceptions that leadership distracts from clinical practice.
Kuranga said it was imperative to embed leadership, health economics and management modules into undergraduate medical education, while ensuring such courses also formed part of every residency training programme.
“In addition, we should also deliberately pair residents and young consultants with serving CMDs, commissioners and agency heads.
“Thereafter, there should be an established structured qualification, in terms of a diploma or fellowship in health leadership, and in time a Nigerian College of Medical Leadership.
“Most importantly, we should recognise, protect and properly remunerate managerial roles, so that competence, not accident, fills them,” he said.
NAN reports that IEMDG comprises medical doctors from Ilorin Emirate who came together to serve, sacrifice, collaborate and positively impact their community through professional and humanitarian healthcare initiatives.
Over the past decade, the group has attended to more than 10,000 patients through various medical outreach programmes undertaken independently or in partnership with other individuals, organisations and community-based groups.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Abiemwense Moru
