The Federal Government has inaugurated a 19-member ministerial implementation and monitoring committee tasked with establishing medical simulation centres across Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
The centres aim to transform medical training and healthcare delivery in the country.
Speaking at the inauguration in Abuja, the Minister of Education, Dr.Maruf Alausa , lamented the near absence of medical simulation centres in Nigerian medical schools.
He emphasized that advanced training tools like virtual patients and telemedicine platforms remain largely untapped in the country.The Minister noted that the newly inaugurated committee, chaired by renowned neurosurgeon, Professor Wale Sulaiman, is charged with finalizing a comprehensive roadmap, overseeing implementation, and establishing key performance indicators to monitor the success of each centre.
On his part, the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny Echono, described the initiative as a crucial step toward reshaping medical education in Nigeria. He highlighted the importance of medical simulation in training healthcare professionals in safe, realistic, and controlled environments.
Echono noted that the simulation centres would enable students to repeatedly practice invasive procedures, develop leadership and teamwork abilities, and gain exposure to rare and complex cases while offering immediate feedback and hands-on experience with real medical equipment.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the newly inaugurated committee, Prof. Wale Sulaiman, pledged on behalf of the members to deliver on their mandate, promising to work diligently toward the successful implementation of the project. He expressed optimism that the initiative would set Nigeria’s medical training on a path to global competitiveness.
