Among boys, the ‘doctor career’ fever subsides

Only six per cent Matric graduates have applied for admissions at pre-medical colleges.

KARACHI:

If the numbers are to be believed, men don’t want to become doctors anymore. This year, only 6% of the 50,800 male Matriculation graduates have chosen medicine.

In comparison, around 28% of over 40,000 girls, who passed their Matric science exams this year, have chosen to apply for pre-medical studies at college. But even this is on a downward trend as these numbers have slipped 5% from the previous year.

The body which decides the admission policy - the Centralised Admission Policy (CAP) - had announced admissions to 132 colleges and 24 higher education schools in July with August 29 as the deadline to submit applications.

Only 3,100 boys have submitted admission applications this year at pre-medical colleges, Prof. Dr Nasir Ansar, the director of colleges, told The Express Tribune.

The actual admissions offered will be much lower than the applications received, as the authorities will reject a number of below-merit applications. The percentage of boys who applied at commerce and pre-engineering colleges was 36% and 33%, respectively. The remaining percentage may opt for private colleges or even shun further studies.

College-level students usually follow trends, believes Muhammad Zaheer, who bagged third position in the intermediate pre-engineering programme. “There is a general perception that engineering is [a] manly [subject] as compared to medicine which seems suitable for girls,” he said. “From our perspective, we would obviously see what looks better to us, but the responsibility lies on those who dictate such trends and have the authority to change them.”

Yahya Bin Shahid, the top position holder, highlighted another important factor.

The Pakistani medicine degree does not allow graduates to practice in countries like the United States, Canada and United Kingdom without further studies. There are no such issues with the engineering degrees issued by Pakistani institutions.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2012.