ecancermedicalscience

Short Communication

The path to becoming a clinical or radiation oncologist in Nigeria

11 Aug 2022
Ifeanyichukwu Augustine Onyeodi, Gabriel T Fagbenro, Mariam A Bashir, Opeyemi M Awofeso, Adedayo O Joseph

The number of cancer patients in Nigeria continues to rise; however, global advances in cancer research are making the provision of optimal care possible. Cancer management is globally agreed to be multidisciplinary, with patients now having the right to benefit from progress in systemic cancer therapy and radio-diagnosis by receiving treatment from adequately trained and highly skilled clinical and radiation oncologists. Radiation oncology is part of the three divisions that make up oncology – medical oncology, surgical oncology and radiation oncology. This discipline in recent times has been developed into Clinical Oncology and although both clinical oncologists and medical oncologists continue to deliver non-surgical cancer treatment, only clinical oncologists are qualified to deliver radiotherapy in the management of cancers. Though clinical oncologists continue to provide quality cancer workforce for the country’s increasing number of cancer patients, much is still unknown about this discipline in Nigeria. It is hoped that inspiring radio-oncologists will take note of the information provided by this article as a guide. This paper chronicles the multifarious process involved in training to become a clinical and radiation-oncologist in Nigeria, plus the requirements, as well as pertinent information a budding physician seeking to advance in this highly specialised field requires.

Related Articles

Badira Cheriyalinkal Parambil, Girish Chinnaswamy, Maya Prasad, Venkata Rama Mohan Gollamudi, Ajay Puri, Ashish Gulia, Sajid Qureshi, Prakash Nayak, Manish Pruthi, Siddhartha Laskar, Nehal Khanna, Jifmi Jose Manjali, Amit Janu, Sneha Shah, Nilendu Purandare, Mukta Ramadwar, Poonam Panjwani, Bharat Rekhi, Pallavi Rane, Shripad Banavali
Tooba Ali, Laraib Khan, Bilal Mazhar Qureshi, Asim Hafiz, Maria Tariq, Khurram Minhas, Nasir Ali, Ahmed Nadeem Abbasi
Solomon Kibudde, Awusi Kavuma, Bonny Abal, Moses Fredrick Katumba, Cissy Bangidde Namutale, Daniel Kanyike, Israel Luutu
Swasthik Upadhya, Sameer Rastogi, Adarsh Barwad, Shamim Ahmed Shamim, Dikhra Khan, Sudheer Arava, Vineeta Ojha, Akshit Kumar Ganesan Karthikeyan, Akshya Kumar Bisoi