ABSTRACT
The debut of health care education in Nigeria began at Yaba Higher College in 1934, and the first university-based medical education was established at Ibadan in 1948. Unfortunately, the contributions of the pioneer Nigerian health care academician in the 20th century have primarily remained unrecognized. This investigation sets out to identify the pioneer Nigerian health care scholars and explore their service and scholarship contributions. An exhaustive analysis of the literature using PubMed and Google search engines and other relevant websites produced 19 eminent Nigerian academicians. Fourteen physicians from different medical specialties (Oritsejolomi, Mabayoje, Nwokolo, Lambo, Ogunlesi, Odeku, Grillo, Udekwu, Ransome-Kuti, Lucas, Akinkugbe, Osuntokun, Adeloye, and Osotimehin), and five other health professionals – nursing (Adebo), physiotherapy (Nwuga), pharmacy (Aguwa), optometry (Ogbueh) and psychology (Ugwuegbu). The analysis revealed the 19 scholars received their professional education in the United Kingdom or the United States and contributed significantly to the development of health care education programs in Nigeria and beyond. As trailblazers, they crafted the research agenda in their disciplines, but the scientific impact of their work remains unquantified to date. Bibliometric measures such as the number of publications, citations, co-authorships, H-index, and m-quotient scores of their research are needed to ascertain the gravitas of their contribution to knowledge.
