ISLAMABAD: After criticism by some council members, the meeting of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) scheduled in Quetta for Thursday was cancelled.

However, PMDC President Dr Shabbir Lehri said the meeting could not be held as a large number of the members were out of the country in connection with the election to the director general World Health Organisation in Geneva in which Dr Sania Nishtar from Pakistan was a candidate.

PMDC member retired Maj Gen Abdul Khaliq Naveed told Dawn that he was in Lahore on Wednesday and ready to go to Quetta for the meeting.

“However, I received a call from PMDC Registrar Dr Azhar Ali Shah that the meeting had been cancelled,” he said.

It may be mentioned that some of the members were not comfortable with the meeting at Quetta, the native town of the PMDC president.

Dr Lehri said the meeting would be held in Islamabad next week when most of the members would return. However, the executive committee held its meeting in Quetta on Wednesday, he said.

In reply to a question, Dr Lehri said during the meeting of the committee teaching regulations were passed.

At the start of the year, teaching regulations are uploaded on the website of the PMDC. However, after two months of implementation the regulations were removed from the website.

Dr Lehri said one of the members, Dr Eace Mohammad, had reservations on the regulations so they were removed from the website. As a consensus has been developed, the regulations will be uploaded again, he added.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2017