Opinion
Medical Internship: Fuss and Fact
By Dr. Ouma Oluga.
Focused Professional Practice Evaluation, often 12 months, is done for several reasons such as to ascertain or award privileges for medical practice. It basically spotlights competence and behavior.
Medical Internship is regarded worldwide as a framework for Evaluating Professional Practice in a focused way.
Practice means these interns have to see patients and perform procedures. Now that is serious. Practice is real work – a lot of technical and complex work that initiates the perofessional into a world of doctor(ship). In our case in Kenya, 27% of all medical work is done by medical interns. You will never notice who is an intern and who is not. It is not education. It is not training. And it is not volunteering. And it is not supervision per se (entirely). 90% of intern work is unsupervised at the time they deliver the service. They are alone with patients, making life and death decisions. Those decisions are evaluated not less than 8 hours later or when the intern calls on the superior.
What an internship policy should do is to define the conditions for which an intern can make decisions by self and those for which the intern MUST call a superior. Internship policy should not talk about pay. So do we understand the difference between evaluation of performance by specialists and supervision or training or volunteering?
The term medical intern has several nomenclature in different countries. In USA, they are house officers. In UK, they are junior drs. In Kenya, Public Service Commission/Department of Personnel Management used to call ‘us’ Medical Officer 2 or Dental Officer 2 or Pharmacist 2. Much of Africa calls them interns. A term not existent in developed world as far medical career is concerned.
In August 2016 when I led the development of first ever the schemes of service for doctors, we retained the names Medical/Dental/Pharmacist 2 as appearance on the payslip. The IPPD – which is the official Kenya Government pay structure – has the terms Medical/Dental/Pharmacist Officer 2. Medical Intern does not appear on the payslip.
For the CBA, We were very clear about the term intern just so that no one mischeaviously plays around it in the future. And 7 years have proven us right. Yet we also tied the payment evidence to the naming used in scheme of services. The PSC graduated the schemes sometime 2019 and called them career guidelines. Still retaining the temr Medical/Dental/Pharmacist Officer 2.
To summarize, you get no certificate after completion of internship and no qualification more than what you got in med school after completion. But if evaluated positively you get registered (permanently in the roll), not licensed. The interns are already licensed. And every year every doctor must be licensed anyway as long as they are still practising. So internship gains you entry for registration as a doctor.
Let us say more about licensing. Licensing is a temporary permit to make medical decisions. And yes it is temporary for all doctors. Whether you are a neurosurgeon or an intern. It lasts exactly 12 months in all countries on earth. Interns get theirs too for one year. Not different from any doctor.
Medical Internship is healthcare regulation in all definitions. And medical internship is work. It is labour and it is service in all definitions. It is employment. In the USA for example, hospitals get reimbursed by government based on numbers of house officers and residents they have.
There is need for us to have a deeper view around what makes healthcare regulation. And what constitutes labour. Internship is both. We must fulfill both obligations.
The writer is a former KMPDU Secretary General.
Kenya Insights allows guest blogging, if you want to be published on Kenya’s most authoritative and accurate blog, have an expose, news TIPS, story angles, human interest stories, drop us an email on [email protected] or via Telegram
Sports19 hours ago
Best Betting Sites in Kenya for 2026
Business24 hours ago
How Safaricom Could Sell You Out To KRA
Business1 day ago
A Case That Refuses To Die: EABL Stake Sale Faces Fresh Challenge After Temporary Reprieve
News1 day ago
The Kewota Racket: How Kenya’s Female Teachers Are Being Bled Dry
Business2 days ago
Raila-Linked Firm Benefited From G-to-G Fuel Import Deal
News3 days ago
IEBC Registers Nearly 1 Million New Voters In 11 Days
Business4 days ago
Wattanga Fired Over Incompetence in Tech, Insiders Say
Investigations5 days ago
Why Kisumu Senator Tom Ojienda Is Suspected as the Hidden Hand Behind the Brutal Beating of Senator Godfrey Osotsi
Business5 days ago
Bia Tosha vs EABL: Why the Dispute Isn’t What You Might Have Been Told
News5 days ago
The Lawyer at the Centre of Kenya’s State Machine: Eric Gumbo, the AG’s Bypassed Office, and the Half-Billion-Shilling Question
Investigations2 weeks ago
Forged Legacy: How Kaplan and Stratton’s Peter Gachuhi Is Accused of Faking a Top AG’s Will as State Claims Damning Evidence
Business4 weeks ago
‘They Will Eat You Alive’: Retired Teacher Warns Against Bashy African Credit as Sh500,000 Loan Spirals Into Sh1.5 Million Fight
Business3 weeks ago
THE HANDSHAKE THAT BECAME A NOOSE: How Tuju’s Alleged Intimate Access to EADB’s Yeda Apopo Produced a Sh294 Million Deal With No Written Contract, and Why That Trust Destroyed an Empire
Business2 weeks ago
Sold And Abandoned: How Diageo and Asahi Are Locking Kenya’s EABL Minority Shareholders Out Of East Africa’s Biggest Corporate Heist
Business2 weeks ago
How Firm Linked To Mombasa Tycoon Jaffer Was Allowed To Import Fuel At Bloated Price And Set To Make Billions In Profits From Iranian War Crisis In Kenya
Business1 week ago
Poison at the Pump: How Kenya’s Fuel Marking System May Be Exposing Millions to Cancer-Causing Chemicals
Investigations7 days ago
The Teflon Company: How Gulf Energy’s Insiders Built Billions on Kenya’s Fuel, and Walked Away Clean
News2 weeks ago
Men Linked to Akasha Drug Dynasty Charged With Death Threats and Assault at Nairobi Nightclub
Investigations1 week ago
THE ZAKHEM-ECOBANK MACHINE: How Kenya’s Courts Were Weaponised to Drain a State Corporation of Over KES 78 Billion
News5 days ago
Mombasa Lawyer Exposed In Sh600 Million Alleged Double-Dealing Diani Property Transaction
-
Investigations2 weeks agoForged Legacy: How Kaplan and Stratton’s Peter Gachuhi Is Accused of Faking a Top AG’s Will as State Claims Damning Evidence
-
Business2 weeks agoSold And Abandoned: How Diageo and Asahi Are Locking Kenya’s EABL Minority Shareholders Out Of East Africa’s Biggest Corporate Heist
-
Business2 weeks agoHow Firm Linked To Mombasa Tycoon Jaffer Was Allowed To Import Fuel At Bloated Price And Set To Make Billions In Profits From Iranian War Crisis In Kenya
-
Business1 week agoPoison at the Pump: How Kenya’s Fuel Marking System May Be Exposing Millions to Cancer-Causing Chemicals
-
Investigations7 days agoThe Teflon Company: How Gulf Energy’s Insiders Built Billions on Kenya’s Fuel, and Walked Away Clean
-
Investigations1 week agoTHE ZAKHEM-ECOBANK MACHINE: How Kenya’s Courts Were Weaponised to Drain a State Corporation of Over KES 78 Billion
-
News5 days agoMombasa Lawyer Exposed In Sh600 Million Alleged Double-Dealing Diani Property Transaction
-
Investigations2 weeks agoInside Nyayo House: The Kitchen Cartel That Demands Sh100,000 for a Stove