RAHIM YAR KHAN, Dec 8: Student seats in the Shaikh Zayed Medical College will be increased to 140 from 100.

This was stated by Lahore’s University of Health Sciences vice-chancellor Dr Malik Husain Mubashar while addressing a certificate distribution ceremony held in the college here on Friday.

Dr Mubashar said that the UHS would extend all-out cooperation to the local authorities in setting up a dental college or a nursing institute. He said the UHS would invite 20 selected students of the SZMC for a visit.

He said that the UHS would establish its sixth regional office in Rahim Yar Khan soon. The UHS already has offices in Rawalpindi, Faisalabad , Multan and Bahawalpur, he said.

He said that there were only five PhD teachers of Basic Sciences in public medical colleges in Punjab against a requirement of 160. He said the UHS had started PhD programmes in Basic and Clinical Sciences. At present, he said the colleges affiliated with the UHS had 150 masters, M.Phil, PhD students while 93 students were studying in the UHS that had an outstanding faculty and high-tech labs for research.

Dr Mubashar said that the UHS was committed to creating a nexus between health research in Pakistan and the developed world.

He said that the most important person in hospital was the patient who was always neglected. Keeping in view this important aspect, he said the UHS had introduced a subject of Behavioral Sciences in the first three years of education.

It will be made compulsory from the next year, he said. This will help give medical practice a more humane face, he said.

He said that a computer research lab would be established in the college within two months. He urged the students to set up research clubs and said the UHS would completely support this activity.

He said that the UHS had developed a Modern Information Technology Centre in collaboration with the HEC. He said the center had facilities like video conferencing, PERN and direct access to universities of Texas, Bristol and Manchester.

The facility will be available to all the UHS affiliated medical colleges, he said. Medical students from Rahim Yar Khan will now be participating in seminars, research discussions and symposia being held in the US, he said.

He said that the UHS would invite external examiners from the next year and it would also change its examination curricula. He said that the UHS would also start a student-faculty exchange programme.

He said that he was really impressed by the infrastructure and environment that the SZMC had developed, adding but the real strength of an academic institution could be determined from its human resource department.

Later, SZMC principal Dr Eice Muhammad said that the PC-I of the new building of the SZMC was almost final and it would be sent to the Punjab government within few days.

The construction of the building will start from next year, he said.