A resident doctor is one who is undergoing the residency program in a hospital. This voluntary training is undertaken by medical professionals who desire to become specialists in a particular field, or as they are referred to professionally, “Consultants” (M.U.A, 2025).
The system of medical education in Nigeria is relatively straightforward. It includes six years at an accredited university, followed by a one-year housemanship (internship year) and one year serving the country via NYSC. Largely, this is the extent of requirements to be a practicing doctor in the country.
After these conditions have been met, you begin residency. Depending on the area of specialisation, it lasts about 3–7 years. Fields like Anaesthesiology and Dermatology have shorter durations than more complex areas such as Neurosurgery. Resident doctors start out as Junior Registrars and make their way up to Senior Registrar, before finally becoming Consultants.
In this article, we take a look at the residency program and its effects on those who undergo this training, the state of resident doctors in Nigeria, and the future of residency based on the current state of the system.
Resident doctors work the hardest in most hospitals. In earlier times, the term ‘residency’ was quite literal, with doctors living and working in hospitals.
Naturally, the program is demanding, with many residents working up to 79 hours a week (Ogunsemi, 2020). For context, regular 9-to-5 workers average 40 hours weekly. Essentially, residents work the equivalent of two full-time jobs, with little room for work-life balance.
While the schedule does get less hectic as they move closer to consultancy, it is important to note that most resident doctors (over 50%) are in their early thirties (Adebowale, 2022). These work hours are not compatible with the quality of life most people hope to achieve by that age.
At this point, imagine yourself at 35. You may picture a life that includes spending time with family, working a job you love, and travelling. For many resident doctors, this is not the case. Instead, they deal with little or no time outside work, low pay, and often terrible working conditions.
In today’s world of tech, media, and business fields with lower entry barriers and higher rewards the difference between resident doctors and other professionals their age becomes even more striking.
At an eighty-hour work week, coming off nearly eight years of training, one would expect resident doctors the backbone of most hospitals to be entitled to adequate pay. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Currently, residents in Nigeria earn about one-tenth of the salaries of their American counterparts while working in far worse conditions. This amounts to about ₦300,000 – ₦400,000 for Junior Registrars and ₦400,000 – ₦500,000 for Senior Registrars. In contrast, their counterparts in the U.S. and U.K. earn an average of $3,100–$4,000 (Salary.com, 2025). For someone in their early thirties, putting in 80-hour weeks, this is a pitiful amount.
Apart from being overworked and underpaid, doctors particularly residents face several other challenges:
As one resident doctor in Ibadan told researchers: “I feel depressed … like medicine has always been my passion … it makes it seem as though it was all a wasted effort back in Nigeria.” These voices help us feel the tension behind the statistics.
Given these realities, it is no surprise that many doctors are opting out of the residency pathway. The result is unprecedented levels of emigration through the “japa” wave to countries with better pay and working conditions.
In the past five years, about 16,000 doctors have left the country (Pate, 2025), with many others moving into fields like tech and content creation that offer better balance and rewards.
To put this crisis in perspective, Nigeria currently has fewer than 500 trained ENT consultants nationwide. Meanwhile, the WHO recommends a doctor-to-patient ratio of 1:500. In Nigeria, it is closer to 1:9000 (Sowole, 2025).
A recent study at UCH Ibadan found that 57.4% of resident doctors had emigration intentions, and 34.8% had taken concrete steps toward leaving. Major push factors included poor remuneration, unfavourable working conditions, and limited opportunity for advancement. We are on track to lose even more doctors, and frankly, one cannot blame them for seeking greener pastures.
Despite the bleak picture, there remain some rays of hope.
Stricter immigration policies in the U.K., U.S., and Canada mean that doctors planning to leave must go through more hurdles, which has slowed the rate at which some are exiting. Additionally, more lenient entry into residency programs across Nigeria means that doctors willing to specialize are now finding more open slots.
Residency in Nigeria is losing appeal due to crushing workloads, low pay, and poor working conditions. This is a cause for concern, and there is much the government must do to retain medical talent.
Beyond government, medical associations, NGOs, and the wider public also have roles to play. Pushes for salary restructuring, timely payment, improved hazard allowances, and better healthcare funding can make a real difference.
The future may look uncertain, but all hope is not lost. If we do our best to care for the doctors we currently have, a slow but steady turnaround is still possible
