PESHAWAR: Twenty specialist Pakistani doctors, who had been working abroad for several years, have joined Lady Reading Hospital as assistant professors.

They cite better working environment at the hospital, salary package and improved law and order situation in the country as major reasons for the decision to quit their jobs abroad and join LRH.

Dr Hamid Shehzad, who worked as consultant in the biggest trauma centre of UK at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham for 15 years, has been appointed director of accident and emergency department at LRH.

“I want to serve my own people and promote medical education, especially the emergency medicines, in which I am the only Pakistani to have done fellowship from UK,” Dr Shehzad told Dawn.

Hospital admin notifies appointment of 43 assistant professors

A resident of Charsadda, he graduated from Khyber Medical College in 1999. He said that he wanted to produce skilled human resources to treat the victims of bomb attacks and natural calamities.

The other doctors, who quit their jobs in UK, Ireland, Dubai, Singapore, the US, Malaysia and Brunei etc, have the same feelings.

“I was looking for appropriate time to come to my native province. The improvement in law and order situation coupled with the desire to work in my own province, pulled me here from Ireland where I took lucrative package,” said another physician.

Many of expatriates who spoke to Dawn cited main reason for applying for jobs in LRH, improvement in law and order situation, health reforms and better salary.

The LRH administration notified appointment of 43 assistant professors in 17 different specialties on Wednesday. Twenty of the newly appointed medics belonged to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They had been working abroad for more than a decade, according to officials.

Prof Arshad Javaid, the dean of LRH, told this scribe that it was the biggest ever appointment of specialists on one day since the promulgation of Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act, 2015, in the province.

“The move aims to strengthen the faculty to improve patients’ care and teaching and training of the health professionals. We have initiated the process of faculty induction by directing the heads of the departments to send their need for faculty in their respective departments and subsequently getting approval from the academic council of 149 posts of faculty for various departments at assistant, associate and professor level,” he said.

Prof Arshad said that around 680 candidates applied for those positions. He said that 38 assistant professors had been recruited in February 2016. The newly-inducted specialists would be allowed institution-based practice (IBP).

The salary package for assistant professor is Rs250,000 per month, Rs300,000 for associate professor and Rs350,000 for professor.

LRH, the biggest hospital of the province, is ahead of other hospitals covered by the MTIRA as far as launching of IBP is concerned. It started IBP one and half years ago where 40 specialists sit in the evening shift.

Prof Arshad said that with the new appointments, the number of doctors doing IBP would increase to 100.

He said that LRH received 3,000 patients every day for which it needed more specialists.

Prof Arshad said that most of the newly-appointed doctors had lengthy services in reputed hospitals that would benefit the patients as well as promote medical education.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2017