RAWALPINDI: Participants of a conference on Thursday recommended to the government to introduce one-year mandatory diploma on family medicine for medical practitioners and three-year residency course for academics to improve the primary healthcare system in the country.

The two-day conference on family medicine, “Building primary care capacity: Pakistan’s critical need” organised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC)

in collaboration with the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) and Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU) concluded on Thursday.

Addressing the closing ceremony, RMU Vice Chancellor Prof Mohammad Umar said the conference gave voice to the stakeholders and generated a healthy dialogue on family medicine.

He said the recommendations will be presented to the policymakers so that they may be implemented to strengthen the primary healthcare system.

Prof Umar said the conference will prove to be a launching pad for the uplift of the overall healthcare system of the country.

He said the policy framework and the training model for family medicine proposed in the conference will prove to be a guiding pathway for the future.

The conference also provided a platform to develop a framework for a long-term relationship between Pakistani institutions and international faculty through APPNA, which represents 18,000 physicians working in various medical disciplines in the United States and Canada.

The participant covered a large number of subjects and topics pivotal for the development of healthcare system, including family medicine policy framework such as career planning, family medical curriculum and training models, healthcare systems and role of technology, preventive care in family medicine, public-private partnerships and strengthening nursing care.

A large number of local and foreign medical practitioners, medical providers, educators, administrators and policymakers attended the conference.

Panel discussions and working groups also discussed how to foster training programmes and improve policies for comprehensive development of family medicine while promoting investment in public health and healthcare systems.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2020