LAHORE: The health department has nominated junior doctors to represent the province in the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).

The federal government sought nominations of senior doctors from the four provinces after President Arif Alvi notified the PMDC Ordinance of 2019 to form a new 17-member council.

Accordingly, Punjab sent names for clinical sciences, basic sciences and dentistry for the top regulatory medical education body of the country.

According to the Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Department summary, vice chancellor (VC) of the Fatima Jinnah Medical University Prof Dr Aamer Zeman Khan was nominated for clinical sciences; head of the pathology department of the Nishtar Medical University Multan Prof Dr Khalid Usman for basic sciences, and associate professor of de’Montmorency College of Dentistry Lahore Dr Shahid Ali for dentistry.

An official privy to the information said nominations for clinical sciences and the dentistry violated merit.

He said Prof Zeman was nominated after ignoring 24 doctors senior to him. The top five senior medical teachers ignored are: former acting Faisalabad Medical University VC Prof Dr Ali Tirmizey, former principal of the Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS) Prof Dr Hamid Mahmood Butt, former King Edward Medical University VC Prof Dr Asad Aslam Khan, head of SIMS ENT department Prof Dr Mohammad Amjad and Chief Executive of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology Prof Dr Nadeem Hayat Malick.

He said the health authorities ignored the hard fact that at the same time Prof Zeman was contesting for the councilor of College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP).

As CPSP councilor, he said, Prof Zeman would have to take oath to safeguard and promote the postgraduate qualification as per the college’s policy.

“And under the given-policy, he has already given an undertaking to the health department as VC of the state-run medical university that he would promote the qualification of the Punjab government,” the official said.

It is the conflict of interest as both degrees - FCPS of CPSP and the MD/MS of public medical universities - have been strong rivals to each other with the allegations on the former institute (CPSP) to inflict dent on the universities’ programme to retain monopoly.

About Dr Shahid Ali, the official said, the associate professor was nominated bypassing several senior teachers. Also, he was working under the supervision of Prof Usman, who is heading the department of de’Montmorency College of Dentistry, Lahore.

“Principal of de’Montmorency Prof Dr Waheedul Hameed, who is top on the seniority list of the faculty all over Punjab, was also not considered for the nomination,” says the official.

Those ignored by the department included Prof Wasif Ali Khan, Prof Irfanul Haq and Prof Dr Nabila Mirza.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2019