Daily Times

Recently five former principals of the King Edward Medical College (KEMC) along with the representatives of the King Edward Alumni Association as well as members of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) sent a letter to the chief minister (CM) of Punjab requesting that the King Edward Medical University (KEMU) should be reverted back to the status of a medical college. The reason for this request is that ever since the KEMC became a university, it has deteriorated rapidly. In the past I have also made the same suggestion for similar reasons in these pages.

Before I proceed I would like to present my bona fides in this matter. I am a graduate of the KEMC (1970), and served as a professor and a head of department there starting 2004 and subsequently for more than four years as a professor and chairman of a department in the KEMU. Having been there during the transition from college to university and then having seen the results, I strongly believe that the change was unwarranted and detrimental to a great institution.

A little bit of historical background is in order. The University of Health Sciences (UHS) was created in 2002 to serve as an umbrella for all medical colleges in Punjab. KEMC, like other medical colleges, was asked to join it. KEMC and the Fatima Jinnah Medical College (FJMC) refused to join citing the undeniable fact that as the senior medical institutions in the province, they did not feel that it was appropriate for them to become parts of a new medical university. The reason why the UHS could make such a demand and expect compliance was that it happened to be created under the patronage of the then president, General Pervez Musharraf. Also, the UHS was and still is only a glorified ‘examining body’ and has no clinical faculty or medical students of its own.

The tussle to bring the KEMC to heel went on for a while and finally after four years and considerable political manipulations by its supporters, KEMC was granted a university status in 2006. Even so, the newly formed KEMU was always a stepchild. A simple fact will illustrate this point. The UHS has had a permanent Vice Chancellor (VC) from its beginning and he is still there even after achieving ‘superannuation’ many years ago. KEMC has never had a permanent VC and the first two acting VCs were terminated as soon as they reached the age of 60. Also, one of the first steps taken by the present Punjab government was to try and revert KEMU to the status of a medical college. This attempt was unsuccessful.

Things rapidly went downhill for KEMU since then. A new acting VC was appointed a year or so ago who happened to be a very junior member of the KE faculty. This created serious morale problems with the senior faculty. At present virtually no senior professor in any of Punjab’s medical colleges wants to be transferred to KEMU. As a consequence, dozens of senior faculty positions are lying vacant, something unheard of just a few years ago. In particular the basic sciences departments have lost many of their senior faculty creating a serious problem for medical students in their pre-clinical years. This inadequate staffing of the basic science departments has an even worse effect on dozens of students recruited for a four-year BSc in ‘Allied Health Sciences’ programmes in multiple specialties. Many of them will most likely lose at least a year and even when they do graduate they will do so with degrees not even worth the paper they are printed on.

If the situation has to be salvaged, the following changes/improvements must be instituted. First, a well respected full time VC with excellent credentials as a medical teacher and administrator and demonstrated ‘fund raising’ abilities should be appointed for a guaranteed tenure of at least five years. Second, the VC should have full freedom to hire faculty for the university at all levels without interference from the Punjab Health Department. Third, the ‘pink elephant’ called the Surgical Tower should be reconfigured to house allied postgraduate medical training and health sciences teaching facilities. Fourth, new junior faculty should be hired to provide basic and clinical training for the Allied Health Science students. Finally, the entirely redundant university based Master of Surgery (MS) and Doctor of Medicine (MD) programmes should be abandoned and students in these programmes should be transferred to the existing College of Physicians and Surgeon of Pakistan (CPSP) programmes.

If these changes cannot be instituted then it is best to make the KEMU a medical college again and affiliate it with the Punjab University as it had been for over a century. The FJMC is still affiliated with the Punjab University and adding the KEMC will in no way make things worse. Concentration on undergraduate medical education and postgraduate training in affiliated hospitals will improve the quality of education as well as training offered by the KEMC. As far as the Allied Health Sciences students are concerned, the only way to salvage their careers is by transferring them to the UHS where they can continue their education.

Besides all of the above, I also have a solution to the KEMU/UHS problem. In my opinion the best of all worlds would be if the UHS and KEMU are joined to create a King Edward Medical University of Health Sciences while KE becomes a medical college once again. This will attach the ‘panache’ of the KE name to all students graduating from medical colleges in Punjab.

In summary, KEMC — once a great institution — is facing ruination. Perhaps the quickest way to reverse this trend is to make KEMU a medical college again so that it can perform what has historically been its best function and that this to train medical students and produce world class doctors.

The writer has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com