Passing out: Fresh batch of physicians and surgeons ready to help patients

Speakers at the convocation inform graduates that this is the start of the journey, not its end.

KARACHI: There is much more to medicine than drugs and technology - professionalism, ethics and humanism are often more rewarding than medical diagnosis and surgical procedures.

With this one final lesson, the graduates from the southern half of the country attending the 47th convocation of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) walked away with their degrees on Thursday.



At the ceremony, 286 doctors were awarded fellowship after four years of postgraduate training and 59 were awarded membership after completing a two-year postgraduate programme. They had specialised in diverse fields of medical science, including cardiac surgery, histopathology, neurosurgery, medical oncology, psychiatry, pulmonology, community medicine, operative dentistry, immunology and haematology.

Chief guest Prof SM Rab, the only surviving founding fellow of the college that was established in 1962 as the first postgraduate medical training and examination body of Pakistan, spoke to the graduates as a mentor and a fellow doctor.

“The reward of your efforts in acquiring a specialisation lies in the success with which you are able to translate your learning into improving lives,” said Prof Rab while addressing the college’s new fellows and members.

CPSP president Prof Zafarullah Chaudhry had a similar message for them. “The path you have chosen does not end with your formal qualification,” he said. “It is just the beginning of a long journey that a novice has to undertake to become an expert in any field. This journey requires you to reflect upon each experience, identify and utilise resources to update knowledge. It is vital that you keep honing your skills and learn new ones for personal and professional development.”

While talking about the expansion in its training network, Prof Chaudhry claimed that the CPSP today stands out amongst international institutions of postgraduate medical education. “The college offers 69 fellowship and 20 membership programmes for medical and dental professionals at home and abroad, including Saudi Arabia, Nepal and the United Kingdom.”



Meanwhile, the CPSP’s training network within the country, he added, includes over 17,000 trainees at 169 accredited institutions under the supervision of 2,423 supervisors, while around 166 trainees are enrolled in the CPSP programmes under 122 supervisors at the 75 institutions abroad. By the year 2013, the number of college’s fellows and members had reached to 12,986 and 7,571, respectively.

Dr Farheen Karim, who became a fellow in the discipline of haematology by scoring 79.3 per cent was awarded a gold medal at the ceremony. “My journey does not stop here as I wish to further specialise in transfusion medicine besides working at the Aga Khan University Hospital,” she told The Express Tribune.

Dr Karim graduated from Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences in 2005 and completed her residency at The Aga Khan University Hospital. “I never thought that I would be able to go through with it especially with the added responsibility of a family - my son and husband,” she said. “However, their cooperation and support enabled me to put my all into achieving my goals.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2013.