Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Policy and Administration

Advisor

Ernesto Escobedo

Abstract

Nigeria suffers from a huge brain drain issue across different sectors, particularly in the healthcare sector. The WHO assessed that there is a current shortage of 2.8 million physicians in the world A heuristic phenomenological method was used in this study to explore the lived experiences of 12 Nigerian healthcare practitioners that migrated to the United States. The push-pull theory served as the theoretical framework that grounded this study. The central research questions for this study focused primarily on the reasons healthcare practitioners are leaving Nigeria and what the impact of those decisions have on the Nigerian healthcare sector. Qualitative data were collected and analyzed identified three emerging themes: (a) challenges of living in Nigeria; (b) lack of government support; and (c) reality of knowledge gap. The participants were selected by using a purposive and snowball sampling method, and a semi-structure interview was used to collect data from the participants. The study used Moustakas’s heuristic phenomenological approach, which allowed the use of thematic analysis to record and identify passages of the text that fell into categories. The finding from the research puts the brain drain phenomenon on the Nigerian government and its lack of support in rebuilding the healthcare system. Recommendations were made based on the emergent themes on how the government can work with Nigerians in the diaspora to help strengthen the Nigerian healthcare sector and to create worthwhile policies/laws/regulations that will help build the country. Implication for positive social change include the creation of jobs for young Nigerians and creating proper policies and wage scale so that they can be on par with their counterpart.

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