MBH Graduates Two Specialist Doctors from PACCS, CIMS Residency Programs
Mbingo Baptist Hospital (MBH) is very much alive and functioning as the citadel and mother of all CBC Health Services institutions contrary to rumour and misinformation that the hospital has been transferred to Bamenda owing to the ongoing socio-political crisis rocking the Northwest and Southwest regions since November 2016.
Against all odds, the hospital graduated on December 14, 2019, two doctors from her specialization programs; one from the seventh batch of the Christian Internal Medicine Specialization (CIMS) and one from the eighth class of the Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS). Both Cameroonians included: Dr. Sama Akanyu as the pioneer female General Surgeon graduate from PAACS and Dr. David Sunday from CIMS.
The Commencement Address as well as the Charge to the graduates sounded like a sermon in church, all pointing to the compassionate care of Jesus Christ as exemplified in the training at PAACS and CIMS. And that makes the whole lot of difference with the specialization training programs in Mbingo Baptist Hospital.
Dr. Jonah N. Wefuan, Senior Consultant Physician, Internist and Rheumatologist and former Chairman of the CBC Health Board felt honoured to admonish the new specialist doctors with his long standing experience in the Commencement Address. According to the retired Director if Bamenda Regional Hospital, “Specialization enables the healthcare professional to focus on a specific niche or area within the medical community, enabling more efficient and higher quality care with the specialist mastering his area of specialization”.
Talking on the benefits of specialization, Dr. Wefuan said, specialized healthcare providers see more patients, increase output and reduce errors, they are open to differential or several possible diagnoses, make quick diagnoses without frequent reference, and a great demand for leadership.
Dr. Wefuan cautioned the graduating specialists against the danger of practicing good medicine as an island entirely of themselves. “The more you know, the more you realize that you know less and that even though you have specialized in general surgery and internal medicine, there are several subspecialties in your discipline,” he noted.
On this premise, Dr. Wefuan told Drs. Sama and David to interact well with professionals of other subspecialties, listen to little advices from nurses, pray with their patients when the urge comes, be humble to check their notes and textbooks especially verifying management protocols and not to give up quickly on a dying patient.
In his charge to the graduates, Dr. Albert Nyanga, Assistant Director of CIMS and former resident of the program harped on compassion as the key tenet of the specialization programs in Mbingo. He charged the two graduates to emulate the biblical Good Samaritan and be evangelists in their medical practice. In a vivid analogy, Dr. Nyanga said it is compassion that pulls patients to CBCHS hospitals especially Mbingo and Banso Baptist Hospitals located in rural settings.
The Directors of PAACS and CIMS, Prof. Jim Brown and Prof. Dennis Palmer respectively presented Dr. Sama Akanyu and Dr. David Sunday as qualified specialists who have completed five and four years of rigorous training. They received their certificates from the hands of their Directors as a symbol of initiation into specialization. Dr. David Sunday spent an additional one-year training in intensive care and he will be in-charge of the Intensive Care Unit in MBH.
In their responses characterized by emotions of joy, Dr. Sama Akanyu and Dr. David Sunday thanked all who contributed in any way in their successes: Program Directors, MBH family and family members who were all present to witness the colourful graduation ceremony.
Rev. Dr. Nfor Ephesians, MBH head chaplain prayed to commission the graduating specialist doctors.