KARACHI, Dec 24: The Karachi chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association has stressed the need for improving the academic facilities being provided to the students of the Sindh Medical College, which is a constituent part of the Dow University of Health Sciences.

According to PMA secretary-general Dr Qaiser Sajjad, the university has been failing to attend to the needs of the college students for some time.

He said that the quality of teaching and training of MBBS students of the SMC had deteriorated, particularly during the last some years, and deserved the immediate attention of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.

“Appointment and re-location of the faculty in basic medical sciences should be done according to rules and regulations of the PMDC,” said Dr Sajjad, adding that the SMC should not be deprived of competent faculty.

Furthermore, the association noted that third year, fourth year and final year students of the SMC were now being required to visit the Dow Medical College and the Civil Hospital Karachi for their clinical studies.

The PMA has been of the view that the SMC could overcome problems related to the clinical side if the Sindh government granted four public sector hospitals located in New Karachi, Liaquatabad, Korangi and Saudabad the status of teaching hospitals.

The hospitals should be affiliated with the SMC and faculty positions should be awarded to all those postgraduate doctors working in the hospitals, a PMA statement said, hoping that a proactive role played by high-ups in the government in the matter would not only help ease the suffering of medical students seeking clinical training but would also place the hospitals in a position to provide emergency care to the neighbourhood people.

Commenting on the PMA statement, the executive director of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Dr Prof Rashid Jooma, told Dawn on Monday that his institution was facilitating SMC students as far as clinical training was concerned and the JPMC’s disassociation with the medical college, established by the Sindh government in 1972, was not on the cards.

Answering another question, he said he did not know why the Dow University had called SMC students to the DMC for clinical studies. “The DUHS vice-chancellor who met me today did not speak about alternative training arrangements for SMC students, though he shared with me his vision about steps aimed at improving the SMC’s clinical teaching affairs right from the third year. I hope that JPMC-SMC relations would be strengthened further in the future,” he said.

A spokesperson for DUHS said that the system of clinical training and classes of SMC students at the JPMC were going on as usual and misgivings about the halt to the long existing teaching and training practices for SMC students were unfounded.

Perhaps some quarters got confused about a plan of the university to have an integrated system of teaching for undergraduate medical students, the spokesperson said, adding that symposia would be held every week or every fortnight either at the DMC or at the SMC and students would have to visit each other’s campuses on a regular basis.