PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Mehtab Ahmad Khan has said the policy of admission to medical colleges should be revisited to ensure effective healthcare in the province.

Speaking at the convocation of the Khyber Girls Medical College (KGMC) on Saturday, he said that female doctors should spend more time in the profession to save the lives of people, especially of their gender.

The governor said that more female became doctors every year than males but only a few joined government jobs due to which the women patients didn’t get desired healthcare. A policy should be devised to ensure that women doctors serve the people at government health centres after completion of their studies, he added.

It is a fact that girls have outnumbered boys in medical colleges but majority of them don’t opt for government jobs after studies which deprive people of quality healthcare, he maintained.

Doctors should stick to ethics and show commitment to their profession, he said, adding the gap between a patient and a doctor should be bridged.

Mehtab Khan said the government was according top priority to health and education sectors, and asked the doctors to carry out biomedical research in local context to find solution to the new ailments.

He showed satisfaction over the progress made by KGMC in a short span of time, and said that it had succeeded in achieving respect in the society both in the academic and co-curricular activities. He said though KGMC was a nascent medical institute, but he was sure that it would prove itself to be one of the best centres of learning in health sciences.

The governor said that the college had taken commendable steps to increase the number of seats from 50 to 100, develop module-based integrated curriculum and adopt the latest teaching methodologies such as problem-based learning.

Mehtab Khan said that the society had great expectations from the young medical graduates.

The governor announced Rs1 million grant to the staff welfare society of the KGMC and Rs10,000 each to the students obtaining gold medals on getting top positions in their examinations. He promised that he would direct the quarters concerned to provide laptops to the brilliant students of the college.

On the occasion, 67 graduates were awarded MBBS degrees while 23 students got gold medals.

Dr Munazza Ayub got eight medals and was declared the best student of the year 2013 in the college.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2015

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