THE domain of traditional medicine is facing problems owing to the improper attention accorded to its education. The Government Medical College was established in Lahore in 1864 and it used to grant the Licentiate of State Medical Faculty (LSMF) at the end of a four-year course to entrants after matriculation. The LSMF was abolished in 2007 and replaced across the board with MBBS which was actually an upgrade of medical education in the country.

The same pattern is required to be adopted in ‘Tibb’ education. The National Council for Tibb (NCT), Islamabad, catered to the education of ‘Tibb’ and awarded a four-year diploma of Fazil Tibb-wal-Jarahat (FTJ) post-matriculation under the Unani, Ayurvedic and Homoeopathic Act, 1965. After the Higher Education Commission (HEC) came into being, it introduced the five-year Bachelor of Eastern Medicine and Surgery (BEMS) degree after Intermediate Science and one year of clinical internship. As such, the FJT should now be discarded just as was done with the LSMF. This will generate high-class, educated traditional physicians practising eastern medicine.

Khan Usmanghani

Karachi

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2016