Scalpel-wielding and not spoon fed: 307 doctors graduate from Ziauddin University

National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza underscores need to popularise family medicine.

KARACHI:

On Saturday, 307 students, wearing black robes with red frills, entered the hall in a procession to the classical rhythm of a sitar. The sound was interrupted from time to time by cheers from the audience as they hopefully watched their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews proceed to become the next batch of active health care professionals.

Before the event formally began, Ziauddin Medical College Dean Dr Kamran Hameed asked the audience to observe few minutes of silence for Prof. Dr Abdul Qadir from the psychology department and the other victims of Bhoja Air crash on Friday.

After this, Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui started off by saying that Ziauddin University prided itself for having a medical college that is among the top five medical institutions in Pakistan.

“We were spoon-fed all our lives. Then suddenly we were left to do research on our own and meet deadlines,” said Dr Farjad Zafar, one of the fresh graduates. “Today, I can say that the university gave us education and a career. We walk out of it today as proud doctors.”

Both gold medals went to women, Dr Mariam Rasool for the MBBS, and Sehrish Lakhani for Pharm-D.

The chief guest, National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza, stressed the need to popularise family medicine and involve medical practitioners in primary health care centres. “Hospital training focuses too much on complicated cases,” she said. “The students don’t get a chance to see day-to-day health issues of families.”

Dr Mirza appreciated the initiatives taken by the private sector in opening up more medical colleges. “Both the public and private sectors can overcome the shortage of physicians in the country if they work together.”

She said that she was happy to observe that the university had expanded its medical programme to nine undergraduate and postgraduate faculties. “The most notable one is the bachelors programme in speech language therapy. It is the only such programme in Pakistan.”

Talking about their plans, Chancellor Dr Asim Hussain said that the College of Pharmacy will soon be moved to a new 50-acre site in Education City. Other colleges, of engineering, physical sciences, mathematics, social sciences, liberal arts and law have been planned. “The university is set to make a qualitative difference in higher education,” he declared.

Former federal information minister, Javed Jabbar, and the chairman of Higher Education Commission, Dr Javed Laghari, were among the guests.

Correction: An earlier version of the photo caption incorrectly stated Farooq Leghari's name instead of Dr Javed Leghari. The correction has been made.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2012.