LAHORE, Sept 16: An official study has recommended merger of the Post-Graduate Medical Institute and the Services Institute of Medical Sciences to end fighting between two groups of doctors over occupation of the PGMI premises
at Birdwood Road and a number of other allied administrative matters.
The study has been conducted by experts on the directive of the provincial authorities who want to solve the controversy between the PGMI and the SIMS, according to official sources.
The merger would end the controversy which was giving a bad name to the provincial government despite the fact that it was not involved, and also save around Rs3 billion required to raise infrastructure for the bodies, they said.
The sources claimed that both the institutions were overstaffed and under-utilized and the merger would also make their utilization optimal with a reasonable staff strength.
The sources said the government was feeling embarrassed because of fighting between the two bodies, which made it wonder why it should spend huge sums of money only to earn bad name for itself.
According to the report, there should be one medical institute with under-graduate and post-graduate teaching and training facilities, like the King Edward Medical College and the affiliated Mayo Hospital, Lady Wellington Hospital and Lady Atchison Hospital. The KEMC is imparting education to both under-graduate and post-graduate students.
Both the Services Hospital and Lahore General Hospital should be attached to the PGMI or whatever name is given to it. In case of a single institution, the faculty of the PGMI can be adequately utilized with minimum additional expenditure and the newly created posts of SIMS abolished. Post-graduate students can also be utilized to impart training and teaching to under-graduate students, the report says.
This will also help train post-graduate students as teachers. Both the Services Hospital and the Lahore General Hospital can be affiliated for under-graduate as well as post-graduate teaching.
There should be one principal and one board of management along with one faculty in both the hospitals affiliated with this institute. A deputy dean or vice-principal can save about Rs100 million annually apart from resolving the controversy, the report suggests.
The PGMI was established in 1975 and housed in a portion of the King Edward Medical College. It was shifted to the old premises of Allama Iqbal Medical College at Birdwood Road when the college was given a new building near the Jinnah Hospital.
The PGMI was given the new place to run its basic departments here and its clinical side in the allied Services Hospital and LGH. It had the capacity to impart post-graduate medical education to approximately 400 students a year but it hardly utilized its potential to the maximum and on an average 100 students were given admission annually, the report says.
As the faculty of PGMI was under-utilized its staff came up with the idea of starting under-graduate classes on its premises on a self-finance basis because there was a mushroom growth of medical colleges for under-graduate study in the private sector with deficient and inexperienced staff and inadequate clinical teaching facilities that fell short of the criteria set by the PMDC for recognition.
It was thought that under-graduate classes at PGMI with fully qualified academic faculty would help in imparting quality education to students on the one hand and utilizing the existing faculty to its optimum level on the other.
The academic council approved the idea in its meeting of May 2001 and submitted the proposal to the government, which however established a new institute instead with the name of SIMS with a separate faculty of approximately 30 professors, 32 associate professors and 40 assistant professors in order to start under-graduate classes.
Two board of governors were created instead of one and the two hospitals divided between the two bodies. "The exchequer in the process has been burdened with an additional Rs100 million apart from the requirement of new buildings which would cost much more," the report says.
Post-graduate medical education involves training in clinical departments along with research work in basic science departments. No new posts are required by the PMDC to start under-graduate classes at PGMI whereas a number of new departments would be required if a new institution is established for under-graduate classes.
