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1. NIGERIA COMMUNITY MEDICINE NEWSLETTER
MC Asuzu
No 1. The need for an authentic PH & CM newsletter 18th October, 2010
Some of the readers of this newsletter who were recently in Ibadan would have learnt that our
department’s name of Community Medicine, has again been changed to Preventive Medicine and
Primary Care. This would obviously be scandalous to you, knowing how long and hard we have
fought to teach and assert the truth of our discipline correctly, AS IT HAS FACTUALLY DEVELOPED
AND BECOME KNOWN SINCE 1974, GLOBALLY; but especially, as it must be applied in all the
developing (and in some cases actually non-developing or factually retrogressing) countries of the
world. That history is so clear that only a very ignorant person (or someone otherwise –
psychologically, morally or sociologically - very challenged) will refuse or be unable to understand,
to believe, accept and live it out, if called to practice it; or, if otherwise, in another specialty or
work area of life, to at least respect it. By such errors coming out of Ibadan, some of you who do
not know their very un-wholesome genesis might be persuaded to think that “coming out of
Ibadan, then, that must be correct or the true and acceptable state of affairs”.
Well, I hasten to inform you all, that such a retrogressive and obsolete nomenclature is not the
only un-wholesome thing that has come out of Ibadan lately. Earlier, between 1995 and 2000,
something similar (and in many ways as bad as this) had happened! One of these, in relation with
our applied public health and community medicine specialty, was the creation of a so-called
faculty of public health in the primarily undergraduate institution of the University of Ibadan and
its College of Medicine. As you MUST all know, public health is a postgraduate, post-professional
and multi-disciplinary enterprise (NOT A PROFESSION, AT ALL) and which comprises of virtually
every area of human knowledge, profession and skills; as can be applied to the prevention of
diseases and the promotion of health. For this reason, public health AS AN EDUCATIONAL
ENTERPRISE is only found in postgraduate schools or institutes in primarily undergraduate
educational establishments; viz, the London Institute or School, the Liverpool one, or the Harvard
and Johns Hopkins Schools (not institutes) of PH or Hygiene, etc. The genuine faculties of public
health around the world, as the post-graduate issues that they are, are found ONLY in the Royal
College of Physicians (UK, Australasia, etc), the National Nigerian and the West African
Postgraduate Medical Colleges or the Rockefeller Postgraduate Medical University, etc. Thus, as to
be expected, this abnormal faculty of public health at Ibadan will never cease to be a source of
further scandals, trouble and abnormal results for the nation and the world, until it is corrected.
The second scandal emanating originally from Ibadan in the not too long a time ago (and mostly
from some of her supposedly widely accepted leaders in the medical profession of past

2. generations and very few of the present ones, but which error has been taken over and being
propagated nationwide by some of their medical and non-medical disciples) is the inverted
wisdom that our medical specialist fellowships acquired after 4 to 6 years of very rigorous POST-
DOCTORAL qualification and with a very rigorous research, qualifying us for appointment to the
lecturer 1 position in the universities is lesser than the very narrow PhD which is obtained after a
mere Bachelor’s degree and qualifies someone only for appointment to the lecturer II position!
The purpose of this occasional newsletter that I have therefore decided to begin to circulate on my
own, will be PRIMARILY to educate all that I have come to know to be actual or emerging
community physicians in the country so that they will be aware of these abnormalities and their
results – especially in relation with our very dear specialty. In this way, we hope, we will not only
prevent their happening in our readers’ own respective institutions, but also to help prevent the
legitimization of these abuses originating here in Ibadan in any ways that they possibly can,
anywhere else. If we love our country (Nigeria), her people in their entirety that is the moral and
professional purpose of community medicine, our very sacred profession of genuine medicine,
and/or indeed, the entire human race taken together (and not individually as in the other
specializations of medicine), we MUST do our utmost best to prevent these types of abuses. As
must be clear to all of us, these abuses undermine all the people all of the time – as our future
newsletters will be sharing in little and easily consumable bits, each time.
In the final analysis, it is important to observe that the origin and perpetrators of these abuses of
our community medicine discipline are not entirely people outside of it. Many of the most
originators of these abuses are people who had supposedly been part of the so-called community
or public health physicians; but who came into the fold when the discipline was still evolving. They
did so therefore, mostly, only partially – as preventive medicine, social medicine, (the old time
vertical or only sanitary) public health or, indeed, old-time preventive and social medicine. They
largely were never community physicians as finally evolved through appropriately designed and
executed RESIDENCY TRAINING PROGRAMMES THEREOF! We MUST therefore approach the task
to be done NOT as a vengeance mission, an acrimonious one or one of “those who are right
against those who are wrong”! We must do so as people who have come to the light, through
sound knowledge, training and education. Above all, we must do so as people who are full of
wisdom and compassion; knowing fully well that it is only by sound knowledge and good influence
– usually called GRACE – that any man/woman is able to do any good thing. We must do so as a
most gentle people who know that nobody actually does wrong or evil who actually understands
the true wrong or evil that they are doing (and, of course, the good that they could have been
doing instead; and especially the evil or good consequences that will follow either actions, without
doubt and fairly soon indeed!) We must do so as people who know that two wrongs can never
equate to a right; but indeed usually multiplies the wrong or evil. We can only correct a wrong with

3. a right, ignorance with sound knowledge and the challenges that people suffer from with
compassion and any other helps needed – mental, physical, emotional, social, economic, moral or
spiritual assistances.
Beside those people whom I have come to learn to have understood or are eager to understand
what community medicine truly is and have shown evidence that they have received the call (or
vocation) to come into it and to dedicate their lives to it, I will also be sending the newsletter to all
heads of department of community medicine and/or health throughout the country. We would
therefore encourage all of you who receive the mail attaching the newsletter to check and see that
your current head of department’s e-mail address is included in the address list. Otherwise, please
forward the mail to him/her as well as send the address also to us, with that said observation.
Other heads of department of community medicine and/or health anywhere else that you know
that his/her name and e-mail address is not listed in the mails, should also be pointed out to us,
and if such e-addresses are known to you, including such, will also be appreciated. Also, these
newsletters may be copied, excerpted or howsoever else discernedly/properly used (i.e., without
any intention to hurt or abuse anybody and with due acknowledgements); as I believe that it is the
corporate responsibility of us all in the discipline to properly know it, protect it, properly educate
and disseminate it to all and sundry. I am sure that the almighty God whom all genuine people
surely serve – whether they understand Him properly or not, or describe Him similarly or not! –
will assist us in this enterprise! Anybody who sees this newsletter or the excerpts thereof from you
and would rather want to receive it directly may have their names and contact details
communicated to us. They themselves may write to us directly, indicating their interest in
community medicine or health as well as their desire to receive the newsletter and why; and we
will make use of the information. Surely, this will include all medical doctors and other health
workers who understand or wish to understand what public health is, how it is different from
applied or disciplinary public health as applied fully professionally in community medicine, nursing
and/or midwifery as well as the need for all other single or other narrower specializations in all the
fields of human endeavour to orientate themselves to such healthy public health, to disease
prevention and health promotion that they all can contribute to in their various more narrow
ways.
Till our next issue of this newsletter then, I plead God’s grace and blessings on us all. Cheers!