KARACHI, April 22: As many as 174 graduates, including 112 MBBS graduates of two batches, were conferred degrees at the 4th convocation of the Ziauddin University held at the Bahria Auditorium on Saturday.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan, who is patron of the university, was chief guest, and gave away gold medals to the toppers. The Speaker of the Sindh Assembly, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, delivered the keynote address.

Among the graduates, besides MBBS graduates, there were 36 BSc in medical technology, 10 Master physical therapy, 10 BSc physical therapy, 1 MSc clinical microbiology, 2 medical diploma and 3 MPhil degree recipients.

Addressing the passing out graduates, Dr Ibad advised them to keep current in what they did and focus on their patients when they were with them. “As you go forth to lend solace to the suffering humanity, you may want to consider yourselves as ‘learned’ people; but do bear in mind that the aim of education is not only to produce learned people, but also to produce learning people”, he added.

Dr Ibad observed that there was great need for incorporating issues, which affected public lives, like disparities in health care, leadership skills, communication skills, mentoring, professional ethics and careers in the professional medical and dental education, in addition to specific theme-related education.

He pointed out that there was also a need to promote programmes that encourage the youth from the underserved, disadvantaged communities to consider careers in health care. If they eventually decide to pursue a career in medicine or dentistry, they will be more willing to return to practice in those settings, he added, saying “our action projects and programming should strongly emphasize and celebrate humans’ ability to heal one another through understanding”.

Referring to the services of Ziauddin Medical University, now Ziauddin University after amendments made in its charter, the Sindh governor said that the educational institutions had now become a name identified with progress.

In his special address, Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah paid tributes to late Dr Sir Ziauddin Ahmad for his remarkable services as an educationists, mathematician and parliamentarian of the British India. He said that Dr Ziauddin, who also served unofficially as Quaid-i-Azam’s adviser on educational matters, had been instrumental in the establishment of Islamia Colleges at Lahore and Peshawar.

Coming to the graduates, Mr Shah said that while passing out they must be cognizant of the great traditions they had to uphold as medical professionals. Your purpose should be to realize the problems of thousands of men and women in far-flung areas, who had been unable to taste the gifts of freedom so far and were deprived of even basic health facilities.

He said that since the world had become a global village, professionals and scientists should have an interaction with people of the outer world as well, in order to work for radical changes in the society. He stressed the need for carrying out more research activities on the medical front and hoped that doctors would rise up to the new and emerging challenges and deliver in term of people’s aspirations.

The chancellor of ZU, Dr Asim Hussain, said his institutions was now in a process of transformation to a full-fledged varsity imparting education in engineering, business management, physical sciences, mathematics, social sciences and liberal arts, law and mass communication in the years to come. The varsity envisages shifting of the College of Pharmacy within next two to three years at Educational City off Super Highway, he informed.

The vice-chancellor, Shahid Aziz Siddiqi, said that it was a seminal occasion since this is the first convocation of the Ziauddin University, as distinct from the Ziauddin Medical University.

For the MBBS programme, he said, staying within the parameters established by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, we introduced the very same curricular modifications that were being implemented all over the world.

He said that ZU had contributed substantially to a programme where the faculty of family medicine gave clinical and diagnostic services to the people, especially women and children.

Mr Siddiqi said that in the sphere of basic medical sciences, MPhil or PhD programme was initiated so that young minds could be steered towards a career in the field and clinical sciences were taught in a manner to reflect that basic science of a disease was to be completely elucidated.

Those who received university medals (honours award) from the Sindh governor included Samar Anvery, Sara Abedin, Zohaib A. Majid, Afshan Sameera Masood, Aiesha Ishaque, Ali M. Akhtatrul Hasan, Sheeza Nasim, Mariam Irshad, Ambreen, Sohail Ahmad, Zaheena, Maria Haque, Maliha Jaffer, Faheema Amin, Ashraf Amin, Saira Perwaiz Iqbal, Hina Rathore, Mohammad Rizwan Hussain.

Dr Waqaruddin Ahmed and Dr Irfan Amjud Lutfi were conferred degrees of Doctor of Medicine, while Dr Bibi Kulsoom and Dr Nasir Ali Afsar were given Master of Philosophy degrees.