Conference: ‘Keep the govt informed of medical education needs’

‘Input from experts is important to move forward’.

LAHORE: “Medical universities and colleges should come up with reasonable recommendations and training models to improve healthcare delivery system,” said Adviser to the Chief Minister on Health Khawaja Salman Rafique on Sunday.

He was addressing the closing ceremony of a three-day Association for Excellence in Medical Education (AEME) conference at the University of Health Sciences (UHS).

He said the government respected the opinions experts on issues related to healthcare. World Federation for Medical Education President Stefan Lindgren said the quality of scientific work in Pakistan was at par with research being done in universities in the United Kingdom and the United States.

He urged medical professors and students to write for international journals.

Professor Janet Grant of the Open University, UK, said most solutions to health problems could be found in Pakistan. She said medical practitioners needed to import new ideas and benefits from those in view of local realities.

UHS Vice Chancellor Major General (r) Muhammad Aslam said it was time to introduce changes to the way medicine was practiced in Pakistan.

“It is better that we envision these changes and recommendations than have them imposed on us,” he added.

The AEME conference was organised in a public-private partnership and major teaching and medical institutions collaborated for the event including UHS, Isra University, King Edward Medical University (KEMU), Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC), Fatima Jinnah Medical College, College of Physician and Surgeons of Pakistan (CPSP), Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS), CMH Lahore Medical College and Lahore Medical and Dental College. There were 58 poster presentations, 87 paper presentations, 9 state-of-the-art lectures and 32 workshops on major aspects of medical education such as curriculum development, assessment, medical writing, research, teaching and learning, leadership, capacity building, program evaluation, undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2014.