A quiet but deeply unsettling academic storm is gathering at the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC), where allegations have emerged implicating a faction of postgraduate Anatomy lecturers in a scheme that critics warn could irreparably compromise the training and competence of future healthcare providers.
At the heart of the controversy is a reported shift toward the online teaching of Human Anatomy, a foundational discipline long considered indispensable in the physical training of clinical and nursing students.
Sources close to the institution suggest that the shift was not driven by pedagogical innovation or necessity, but rather by the self-serving motives of a small clique of postgraduate PhD candidates currently employed as lecturers.
These individuals allegedly lobbied their faculty heads to endorse remote instruction, allowing them to continue attending their own in-person PhD classes elsewhere while maintaining appearances and allowances at KMTC.let
The group is further accused of radically altering the course structure, rendering it inaccessible to other lecturers and effectively monopolizing the subject.
Alarmingly, the new structure compels Diploma students in Clinical Medicine to complete a single week of dissection-based practicals, a course load experts argue should be delivered gradually over two years.
This dramatic compression of one of the most practical and visually oriented subjects in medical training has sparked fears that the curriculum no longer adheres to international or even local academic standards.
With no known regional Anatomy textbook tailored for Diploma-level instruction, students are allegedly left in an intellectual void, unable to reconcile what they’re being taught with authoritative reference materials.
Insiders claim the group’s apparent immunity stems from links to senior figures within KMTC’s upper management.
This alleged proximity to power has reportedly muted internal dissent and intimidated whistleblowers into silence, allowing practices that critics warn could endanger public health to flourish unchecked.
Meanwhile, students continue to pass through the system with skeletal practical exposure, in a profession where life-and-death decisions are predicated on anatomical precision.
There are now growing calls directed at the Ministry of Health (MoH), the Commission for University Education (CUE), and the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC) to initiate an urgent, independent audit of KMTC’s Anatomy training framework, amid mounting fears that unchecked academic malpractice could undermine the integrity of clinical education and pose a serious risk to public health.
“Good afternoon Cyprian. Kindly expose this scandal unanimously. A group of postgraduate Anatomy students working at KMTC successfully convinced their head of faculty that Human Anatomy can be taught online. In a nutshell, Anatomy serves as the structural blueprint of the human body, which must be comprehensively taught to medical and nursing students prior to any patient interaction. This is an essential course that constitutes the foundational language of medicine and nursing, and it must be delivered in-person (physically) with the requisite gravity.
This KMTC online peddlers had self-serving motive to continue with their physical PhD classes (the irony) without being declared absent at their workstation, and to earn exorbitant allowances, whilst taking students for fraudulent dissection practical. Furthermore, they have illegally altered the course curriculum, rendering it impossible for other lecturers to instruct this course at KMTC, making them untouchable. They have subjected all students taking Diploma in Clinical Medicine in the country to do a one-week Anatomy dissection, a practical program that can only be completed in two years. At the moment there is no regional Anatomy book in the world designed for Diploma students, and therefore, the students cannot make reference to whatever they teach.
It is believed that their group leader has cozy relations with the top echelons at the management. This has instilled fear and panic even in those who attempted to confront or reason with them. A simple search online clearly shows that only Bachelor students can be taught Regional Anatomy for 2 years, being 71% practical subject. While Diploma students are holistically taught Systemic Anatomy with sufficient demonstration practical in their skills lab. Surely, these students have become suddenly cleverer than their trainers and employers. They have coerced a complacent KMTC management into selfish schemes that will produce dangerous clinical officers, worse than cholera epidemic in our beloved country.”
