Neckties — All that is wrong with Nigerian medical education
The Necktie exemplifies all that is wrong with the Nigerian education system. Let me explain.
As a medical student, one thing I never came to terms with was the insistence that male medical students compulsorily wear neckties, a practice justified solely by the notion that medical students need to look corporate. This practice is championed by people I’ll described as medical elders — professor or consultant doctors who have a ton of experience and influence.
An interesting conceptI have learned over the years is the benefit of first principles thinking, what I like to describe as questioning everything even those assumed to be true. In the case of compulsory neckties for medical students, a ‘first principles examination’ would look something like this:
- Why do medical students need to dress corporate/wear neckties?
- Can one dress corporate without a necktie?
- (a thousand other questions….)
- What could go wrong if students don’t use neckties?
- What are the implications on the student using a necktie?
- What are the implications on the people around a student using a necktie e.t.c
If you answered the questions above while reading through, you’ll agree with me that, there is hardly any set of conditions convincing enough to make the necktie a compulsory piece of clothing for medical students in Nigeria or regions with our unique set traits. We live in a tropical country that also suffers epileptic power supply. This means that you are constantly exposed to 30 degree temperatures and man-made attempts at countering this i.e fans, air-conditioners e.t.c are non-existent(re: epileptic power supply). These set of conditions don’t make for an ideal learning environment.
Away from the geographic factors, in situations where asepsis needs to be maintained e.g ICUs, Neonatal units, Certain invasive procedurese.g., surgery, inserting a central line e.t.c, neckties are one of the first things to come off*. In fact, medical elders whom typically are very dogmatic about the use of ties will ‘cut your head off’ if you have a necktie on in any of the scenarios I have just described. This means that they can indeed live with a young male medical student not wearing a tie contrary to what they’d have you believe.
Any stakeholder in the medical education system today will tell you the biggest voices in it have largely outdated beliefs; still holding on to outdated practices such as negative-marking & closed-marking. They use lecture notes from an era ago and gloat about the failure of their own students. Adding to the problem, they encourage you to respond to exam questions with only what they have taught you.
Perhaps the most shocking practice is medical students having to answer the same question differently based on who the examiner is and what the examiners beliefs are on the topic in question. A correct answer to the wrong examiner, no matter how correct, might make you fail even if you’re answering using the facts of the topic as it was taught to you by their own colleagues(Senior & Junior) — and verifiable in medical text.
The Nigerian medical education system is shocking in many ways but what do you expect when neckties are still compulsory?
*There is only weak evidence to suggest ties increase the risk of nosocomial infections
