ISLAMABAD: Although there is a mechanism in place in Pakistan to train doctors, there is no concept of training medical teachers, leading them to rely on experience rather than training in order to develop their teaching skills, the vice chancellor of the University of Health Sciences (UHS) said at a medical symposium on Saturday.

UHS Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Akram was speaking at a session held during the symposium, which concluded Saturday night. The symposium was organised by the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) under the theme ‘Transforming Healthcare’, and attended by 1,000 delegates from across the country and abroad.

Dr Akram said there are only 39 PhDs in medical education in the entire country when there should be at least 300 so they can play their role in training teachers.

“Unfortunately, we have all become teachers by self-training and self-experiences, because there is no proper mechanism to train teachers. However, there is a proper mechanism to train doctors, due to which good and quality doctors are produced in Pakistan,” he said.

Every medical college should have a medical education department, he added, but most colleges do not.

“A department of medical education was established in Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University, and also in the Federal Medical and Dental College in Islamabad. A similar department is established in UHS, and efforts are being made to train teachers because it is also a skill to transfer knowledge to students,” he said.

He said teaching is a skill, and it is the responsibility of the regulators to ensure that every teacher is well trained.

“Currently in Pakistan, a Masters in Health Professional Education (MHPE) has been started and as many as 240 MHPE have been produced. However there is need to produce PhDs so that they would play their role to make good teachers,” he said.

Federal Medical and Dental College Principal Dr Tanveer Khaliq said that medical education is the backbone of the health sector.

“It plays an important role to create professionalism in health service providers. I believe that professional teachers can produce goods students and the system will only be improved because of them,” he said.

Dr Lubna Baig, head of department at the Jinnah Sindh Medical University, gave a lecture on how students should be taught and said teaching is an art.

She said teaching also requires ethics, because that is the only way to produce good students.

Pims Executive Director Dr Raja Amjad said that state-of-the-art lectures were held and scientific papers were also presented by national and international experts. He said that the symposium provided an excellent opportunity to highlight the recent improvements made in the hospital to transform the standard of healthcare services provided to patients.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2018