Dental Housemanship in Nigeria is the compulsory one-year rotation done by all fresh Medical and Dental graduate who wishes to get a full Dental Registration/Dental license in Nigeria.
Centers for Dental Housemanship in Nigeria
Hospitals that are under the centralized posting by MDCN pay Same salary and is currently #244,500 Monthly
You rotate through the 4 major departments and you spend 12 weeks in each department but some of them have sub units so you get to share the 12 weeks in the various units.
1)Child dental health (CDH) department is composed of
– Orthodontics: 6 weeks
– Pediatric dentistry: 6 weeks- Making a Total of 12 weeks
2) Oral and maxillofacial surgery department is just one so you do straight 12 weeks.
3) Oral Diagnosis Department
– Oral medicine/pathology: 6 weeks
– Periodontology:6 weeks
4) Restorative dentistry department
 -Conservative dentistry: 8weeks
 -Prosthodontics: 4 weeks
 Making a total of 12 weeks
Below is a comprehensive review of different centres in Nigeria for Dental Housemanship.
AMINU KANO TEACHING HOSPITAL, KANO (AKTH)
This is a federal teaching hospital in the heart of kano city with a wide land mass. The functional departments include. Orthodontics. Pediatric Dentistry. Maxillofacial surgery.          Oral medicine / Diagnosis. Periodontology and Conservative and prosthodontics.
Work load/ Job description
The patient influx here is high because this centre is a major referral centre in the north for Dentistry
The workload differs depending on the unit you are. The greatest work load is in oral and maxillofacial surgery because of the high patient influx and you’re expected to cover the wards, Emergency, Procedure room, theatre and clinic.
How To Secure House Job In 2024
You are also expected to do some procedures yourself while you assist in some. But generally, it is an avenue to perfect your skills in clerking and making proper diagnosis, proper prescription, suturing, cannulation, Catheterization, Intermaxillary fixations, Incision and drainage/ decompression, surgical and non surgical extractions, RCT, filling if you are diligent
The nurses give the bed side medications so you don’t have to bother.
The senior officers (Residents and consultants) are just there. Although they request and expect strongly that you do every vital task assigned to you.
Accommodation: Accommodation in AKTH house officers’ residence is wonderful. It is easier to get for the males and limited for the females.
And may take you weeks to get 1. Nevertheless, when you get an accommodation, you get a room to yourself with kitchen and bathroom and you are free to renovate as you like. Security is assured too
 Accommodation is paid once accommodation is given: 90k
 Salary: 244,500 (MDCN)
 Flex: There are alot of places to flex outside if you have money. However, Language barrier The patients here speak mostly hausa so you may battle with language barrier at first before you adapt and then find someone to translate for you or you can ask to see patients who speak English while your other colleagues see the ones who speak hausa
 Food: You can cook whenever you want light is constant. There is call food and drink
There are few places you can buy good food within the hospital and outside,
For an average spender, you may spend 3,000-4000 naira daily on food.
Dr. Immaculata (HO at AKTH)
What Next After Induction into MDCN
National Hospital Abuja (NHA)
National hospital Abuja is a federal hospital. It has a lot of structures but they’re mostly interconnected so you don’t have to walk far.
Work load:
You’re to rotate through 4 units here: Oral diagnosis/oral medicine; Restorative/conservative dentistry; Maxillofacial unit and Orthodontics unit.
They have at least one consultant in each department and senior registrars. Barely any registrar so the house officers take the role of registrars.
So it’s a good centre if you want to develop your skills and be hands on as you get to do any procedure you want to do. They’d teach you first though before allowing you attempt.
The workload ranges from moderate to severe depending on what unit you are posted to. With maxillofacial and Restorative taking the cake.
The senior officers (Residents and consultants) are relatively friendly and provide an environment friendly enough to communicate your needs. Although they request and expect strongly that you do every vital tasks assigned to you.
Accommodation: Accommodation is good but limited. They just have 3 rooms allocated officially to dental house officers that take 2 persons each.
So you can imagine the competition. Largely it had been noticed that most dental house officers prefer to stay outside the hospital.
But with the right connections, you can get accomodations in the medical house officers quarters. It may take a while though.
The rooms are adequate in size and are free.
You just pay your light bill with the rooms you share a meter with. Constant water and light. Most have air conditioners but hey, it’s your light bill counting. The dental rooms are bigger than the medical rooms.
The rooms come with attached bathrooms with running water but no kitchen. Medical quarters have one kitchen space per flat of 4 rooms.
The quarters are about 5-8mins walking distance from the main hospital buildings, about 15mins walk from the gate. Good security for when you’re on call at night.
Salary: 244,500 monthly.
Flex: Alot of places to go and hang out. The hospital is in the heart of Abuja so you can get to anywhere you want. It’s your money.
Transportation is not so easy and straightforward. Taxis happen to be the major means of transportation so most people tend to convert their private vehicles to public ones on their way out, so be careful of one chance.
Tricycles don’t run in major roads just in streets. So bolt and Uber are the popular means of transportation around if you don’t want to stand on the road begging for lifts just because taxis don’t run the route you’re taking. Abuja can be expensive and affordable at the same time.
Orderliness: So far you do your job well, you won’t have a problem.
Most superiors are friendly when they see you making effort.
House officers do majority of the procedures and have to report to your chief present. You take calls when you’re in maxillofacial unit, duration depends on how many house officers in the unit at the time.
Food: You can cook whenever you want light is constant. There’s call food but gotten with meal tickets given to each department to distribute.
There are few places you can buy good food within the hospital and around the hospital.
For an average spender, you may spend 5,000 naira daily on food within the hospital.
If you can afford it, you can simply order in from your favorite restaurants and have it delivered to you.
Dr. Kindness (HO @ NHA)
Centers for Dental Housemanship in Nigeria
Lagos University teaching hospital (LUTH)
Lagos University teaching hospital is a federal teaching hospital in Idi araba, Ishaga road in Lagos mainland. The functional departments include.
1)Restorative dentistry(Conservative dent and Prosthodontics)
2)Child dental health (Pedo and Ortho)
3)Maxillofacial surgery. 4)Preventive dentistry (Oral medicine / Diagnosis, Periodontology and oral radiology)
5)Oral pathology
Work load/ Job description:
The patient influx here is high so you get to do a lot of hands on
The workload differs depending on the unit you are .
You spend 13 weeks in each department, 7 weeks in the first unit and 6 weeks in the second unit. You get to have 2 weeks leave in each department but in your second department, the 2 weeks leave would be used for going for secondary posting in oral pathology.
You only rotate 13 weeks each in the first 4 departments mentioned above.
You are also required to do presentations for each unit.
Due to the availability of a substantial amount of registras, snr registras and consultants, you will be opportuned to learn a whole lot esp if you set your mind to it. It is also a very work friendly environment.
Accommodation: Accommodation in LUTH house officers residence (called RMO) is given out through balloting which is done only twice a year.
t is very limited and I would advice you have an accomodation outside the hospital before planning on coming to Luth just in case you find it difficult getting one inside Luth.
If you are not in Lagos within the first week of being posted to luth, try and send in your MDCN posting letter through anyone to the Luth, Cemac office so they can accept you on portal because it takes some days after you submit your letter before you are accepted on the portal and you can’t start your documentation process without being accepted on the portal.
The documentation process is a bit long and can take you almost a month to be done with so try as to have someone guide you so you can be a bit faster.
Salary: 244,500
Flex: This is Lagos, of course there are many places to go and flex
A little draw back is that Lagos experiences a lot of issues of flooding. So whenever it rains, movement in some places is difficult especially if you live outside LUTH.
So it’s either you leave before it rains or before the rains pour down so much that might lead to the flood or you just wait for a little while after the rains must have stopped for the flood to drain away.
Dr. Lilian (HO @ LUTH)
