WELCOME TO DEPARTMENT OF PAEDIATRICS
The department of Paediatrics was established in 1963 to provide total care for the child (in health or sickness), train personnel of various cadres towards this as well as conduct/co-ordinate research, both within and without, in collaboration with allied specialties and subspecialties. In consonance with on-going trends as with the renaming of the Royal College of Physicians of the UK as the Royal College of Paediatrics and child Health, many think the Department should be renamed to reflect emphasis on the Principles and Practice of Paediatrics and the Child Health component as the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Professor W. R. Collis, a Briton, was the founding head of Department (1962-1966) followed by the first indigenous Head in the person of Late Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti. The Department has an academic staff strength of fourteen. All our academic staff also have cross appointments as Honorary Consultants to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos. Subspecialties/ Interest areas for the Academic staff depicting pointed focus for clinical work/teaching, research and other interactions include (Neonatology/perinatology, Clinical Nutrition/Gastroencology, Haematology/ Oncology, Pulmonary, Cardiology, Neurology/Developmental Paediatrics, Endocrinology/Immunology, Nephrology, Emergency/Intensive Care, Social/Community Paediatrics, Paediatric Infections, Adolescent Paediatrics, Rheumatology and School Health).
Research is ongoing in the Department with extensive individual and collaborative out reach both intra- and extradepartmental as well as international. Undergraduate students’ rotations through Paediatrics are for the Basic Therapeutic Skills, Basic Clinical Skills courses done after 200 and 300 levels respectively. Thus students are with the Department all year round with occasional overlaps. Activities for the students involve lectures, tutorials, seminars, ward rounds, clinical meetings and mortality reviews both at meetings and Autopsy examinations, Intensive Clerkships and demonstrations with hands-on, supervised reviews/practice.
They are also exposed to out_patient and emergency services. A fairly well equipped clinical research laboratory managed by a Chief Technologist is at the disposal of academic staff. This laboratory also augments clinical investigations related to patient care and Medical Students laboratory work.
patient care and Medical Students laboratory work. Two wards (D2 and D3) each admitting 32 Patients cater forChildren from 1 months to 12 years. Two Newborn (neonatal) units serve the Department. One caters for babies delivered in LUTH while the other caters for babies born outside LUTH from birth to age of 1 month. This is a unique arrangement which is being replicated in other academic Medical Centers. There is also the Children Emergency Room (Olikoye Ransome-Kuti) Children’s Emergency Centre admits in the first instance all emergencies except those due to trauma. There are in addition three LUTH Consultants who also assist in the training of our medical students. They also rotate at 400 and 600 levels for the Junior and Senior Paediatric Clinical Posting
Students’ evaluations conform to NUC/MDCN guidelines with local embellishment for both efficiency and output. The 600 Level examinations in Paediatrics (Part III MB,BS) consist of a mini-OSCE/OSCE in objective structured clinical examination while OSPE is objective picture examination which is the mid- course examination, MCQ/Long case done at the end of posting. The final examination is made up of two written papers (MCQ and Essay) and the clinicals comprising the OSCE since1983. Additionally, scored skills assessments during the posting, in the form of clinical procedures duly specified and viva voce interactions constitute the continuous Assessment component. All these are weighted and aggregated to determine the final scores. It is pertinent to note that the OSCE makes for objectivity reproducibility, fair exposure and consistency. The uniqueness of this system of evaluation or assessment of medical students is internationally acclaimed and is being adopted with modification in many parts of the world and also locally.