ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has written a letter to Ministry of National Health Services to de-notify seven universities that do not have constituent medical and/or dental colleges.

According to the notification available to Dawn, the universities include Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad (QAU), University of Punjab Lahore, Hazara University Mansehra, Sarhad University Peshawar, University of Peshawar, University of Sindh, Hyderabad, University of Sindh, Jamshoro and University of Karachi.

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PMDC President Prof Dr Masood Hameed Khan said in his statement that after the PMDC ordinance 1962 Amendment Act 2012, universities which do not have their own constituent medical dental college shall not be recognised and notified by the PMDC.

Deputy Registrar PMDC Dr Shaista Faisal said only universities that have constituent medical and/or dental colleges can be considered medical universities but if any of the mentioned universities intend to have a constituent medical and/or dental college, they may reapply for recognition and inclusion of their names.

An official of the PMDC requesting anonymity, said the problem was observed when universities that did not have constituent medical/dental colleges started giving affiliations to private medical colleges.

He said the fact that these universities did not have medical and dental teaching faculty meant that when private medical colleges associated with them had exams, people from other universities were asked to prepare question papers, hold exams and do marking.

Replying to a question about Quaid-i-Azam University, the official said the QAU was running a medical college and Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) in the past, but now Pims had become a university so currently the QAU has no constituent medical institution and so it has been de-notified.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2014