The Vice Chancellor, University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo, Prof. Olusegun Fatusi, has charged the new inductees into the physiotherapy profession from the institution to strictly adhere to the professional values on which the foundation of their training was laid, urging them to place emphasis on patient care rather than money.
Fatusi who gave this charge during the induction ceremony of the first graduating set of Bachelor of Physiotherapy students of UNIMED in Ondo town said the best of patients’ care was expected from them as they join the profession.
The Vice Chancellor maintained that the oath the graduands took into the profession demands that emphasis be placed on patient care, urging them to continuously learn and re-learn as they render service to humanity.
“As you embark on this professional journey, carefully consider the well-being of the people in your care as well as the fact that they are human emotions, hence the need to be compassionate humane in your involvement with them.
“While your years of hard work and commitment here at the university result in promising future careers, I urge you to constantly develop yourself as professionals upholding the values of unity, teamwork and collaboration which are highly essential in this profession,” he said.
The Registrar, Medical Rehabilitation Therapists Board, Dr. Olufunke Akanle, appealed to employers in the private and public sector to create an enabling environment, state of the art infrastructure and equipment and good condition of service for training and practice of practitioners.
Akanle said this would discourage brain drain and medical tourism that is currently being experienced in the country, leading to a short supply of physiotherapists and other medical rehabilitation professionals.
She said “the Board has only registered less than 6000 medical rehabilitation professionals, physiotherapy constitute 90 percent of these registrants.
“Unfortunately more than 30 percent of these numbers practise outside the country and so leaving, with less than 4000 professionals to a population of over 200 million. Yet some of the few that were trained are still unemployed which has led to the brain drain that is currently being experienced in the country.”
Induction lecturer, an Associate Professor, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan and the guest lecturer, Dr (Mrs) Adesola Odole, in her lecture titled “You: Learning, Evolving and your Impact” told the new inductees the need to learn, re-learn and keep learning to acquire all necessary skills in their field.
Odole said: “I want to specifically tell the inductees that they are uniquely different and because they are uniquely different, God has embedded in them so many things, so many potentials they need to tap, just to let them know that as an individual.
“They need to launch out into the world and be the best God wants them to be. For them to be able to that, it is important that they learn and keep learning.
“In this world, we have to learn, when you learn, you’re learning to learn, and in learning to learn you have to unlearn some things, you have to relearn some things and when you do all that, you will be evolving, transforming, and metamorphosising into what God want you to be.
“And at the end of the day, a little change here and there you will find yourself in a space and the space find yourself, whether in the healthcare, banking industry, technological industry or politics, you must endeavour to be the change that the world needs.
“When you do this, integrity is very important, you need to have professional integrity. So when you learn, transform yourself to become somebody in this life and when you do this you impact lives.”
Speaking on the role of physiotherapists in the society, she said “the role of physiotherapy spans round the life of an individual, from the life of a baby, the newness to life of a frail elderly, everything is about physiotherapy because it’s all about independent, it’s about movement, it’s about being functionally independent.
“Even if you have challenges in terms of individual disability, for instance, that does not stop you, physiotherapy will help you to be able to maximize your potentials within the limit of what you’re able to do. So it cuts across every sphere of life.”
Speaking on behalf of other inductees, Miss Deborah Ogheneakporobo Omorode, said the honour will not define them in life but what they do with the knowledge acquired over the past few years.
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