Decamping From Clinical Medicine to Public Health: Nigeria's Intra-health sector Japa
The verb “decamp” is almost confined to political parlance among Nigerians, as it frequently adorns the headlines of media houses when they raise the alarm over the defection of politicians from one political party to another. It turns out, however, that major news outlets haven’t been led to investigate and create a sense of urgency on the need to control the cross-carpeting of a critical group of workers in one of the most essential non-political sectors of Nigeria’s landscape. Therefore, this article aims to shed light on a similar drift within Nigeria’s health sector, as well as the carrots being dangled by the receiving end (public health) that leave the donor entity (frontline clinical health) at the short end of the stick. I often hear colleagues in Nigeria tell me of their desire to exit clinical practice in search of “WHO-like jobs” (World Health Organization-type careers) that can take them around the world, attract them to conferences in beautiful hotels, earn fore...