For docs not technicians: Alumni want King Edward Medical College restored

The decision was taken at an annual meeting held at Alhamra on Wednesday. Three former KEMC principals, over 50 professors and dozens of Kemcolians attended the meeting. The participants also decided to revive the Kemcolian Forum and nominated former KEMC principal Dr Mahmood Ali Malik as its patron and Professor Sohail Chughtai as its president.

“Medical education doesn’t produce technicians. It is conceptually embedded in general education. Doctors are supposed to be humanists not technicians. Worldwide medical schools and colleges are affiliated to general universities. There are not many separate medical universities. In London, there are 17 medical college and all are affiliated to the University of London. The same is the case with the Cambridge and the Oxford,” said Professor Mahmood Ali Malik, the former KEMC principal.

He said: “In the first place, the KEMC shouldn’t have been abolished by merging it into the KEMU… We don’t want the university to lose that status. All we want is to get back and preserve our 150-year old college. We want the KEMC restored. Our undergraduates (MBBS students) have been suffering since the college was upgraded to university in 2006. The KEMC identity was its MBBS graduates worldwide. Now technicians and allied health sciences students are being preferred over MBBS students…The KEMC building is being used for KEMU courses.”

“Those admitted to the undergraduate course at the KEMU are still the best brains in the country… And we don’t want to be called Kemunions. We want to be called Kemcolians. We want the KEMC to be restored,” he said.

Former KEMC and Allama Iqbal Medical College principal Professor Iftikhar Ahmad said the KEMC was not only the best medical college in the subcontinent but also the father of all medical colleges in Pakistan. “It was a KEMC team that nurtured the AIMC as well as new colleges in the then NWFP. Converting the KEMC into the KEMU buried the college’s 150-year history,” he said.

Former KEMC principal Professor Ijaz Ahsan said the undergraduate students were the real identity of the KEMC, but they were not preferred at the KEMU today. The KEMC should be restored, he said.

Orthopaedics Professor Amir Aziz said it was sad to see that a few people had played havoc with the prestigious institution in their greed for some lofty titles. He demanded that the KEMC be restored to bring back its lost glory.

KEMU Professor of Medicine Irshad Ahmad Qureshi said: “I have served almost all my life at the KEMC. This was an institution where people were so eager to serve that they filed petitions in courts. Now a post of professor of medicine is lying vacant at the institution for two years.”

Fatima Jinnah Medical College’s ENT Professor Manzoor Ijaz said it was disheartening for him to see his alma mater declining. He said lecture halls for under-graduate students were not available at the KEMU till 1:00pm as they were being used to train technicians and physiotherapists.

AIMC Principal Professor Mahmood Shaukat said some practical steps were needed to restore the KEMC glory. He said KEMU issues needed to be sorted out to make it the best medical education institution again.

Post-Graduate Medical Institute (PGMI) Medicine Professor Ghiyasun Nabi Tayyab said the traditions of medical profession should be restored at the KEMU as well as all other institutions. He said merit should be the rule.

The house unanimously passed a resolution for the restoration of the KEMC as a constituent medical college of the KEMU. It also demanded that the KEMU be granted permission to affiliate other medical institutions. It was decided that a panel would call on authorities to pursue the issues.

Professor Ghiyasun Nabi Tayyab was elected as vice president, Professor Mohammad Amjad as general secretary, Dr Imran Waheed as finance secretary, Dr Aslam Rao as joint secretary and Dr Khuda Bukhsh as press secretary of the Kemcolian Forum (KF).

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2013.