Tribute paid to Professor Khalida Usmani

Fatima Jinnah Medical University (FJMU) Vice Chancellor Professor (Dr) Sardar Fakhar Imam presided over a reference held at the FJMU convocation hall on Wednesday to pay tribute to former principal FJMC late Professor Khalida Usmani for her meritorious services to the medical teaching profession, surgery, scientific research, public awareness programmes about environmental issues and social work.
Prominent personalities of the medical profession, including former Vice Chancellor of KEMU Professor Majeed Chaudhry, Professor Aftab Ahmad Chaudhry, Professor Nazeefa Usman, Dr Waseem Ahmad, Sr Vice Chairperson APWA, academician and former ambassador to Norway Shakila Rasheed, and senior teachers of FJMU also participated in the reference. Late Professor Khalida Usmani had joined the FJMC in 1971 as Assistant Professor and retired in 2000 after serving the college as Associate Professor, Professor and Principal of the college.
Addressing the reference, VC Sardar Fakhar Imam said that late Professor Usmani was a very prominent name in the medical profession for her meritorious services, commitment to the suffering humanity, unwavering love for her students, exceptional training of her juniors in her surgical unit. In Professor Khalida's death, Pakistan has lost a great teacher, a noble soul, a great patriot who preferred to serve her own country rather than UK or USA.
Former Vice Chancellor King Edward Medical University and a prominent surgeon Professor Majeed Chaudhry said with Dr Usmani's death the surgery profession has become much poorer. She had trained thousands of surgeons and had treated hundreds of thousands patients, especially breast cancer patients during more than four decades illustrious career as a surgeon and a teacher. She had achieved the status of an icon in her life time.
In his key note address, Professor Aftab Ahmad Chaudhry, who worked with late Professor Khalida as a surgeon in 1990s, said that Professor Usmani was a wonderful senior colleague, an exceptional teacher, a highly respected surgeon in the medical profession, a dedicated social worker, a strong voice for empowerment of women and a large hearted philanthropist. She will live long in the hearts of her colleagues, hundreds of thousands of students and patients. Professor Nazeefa Usmani said that as a founder executive director of the Cancer Research Foundation of Pakistan late Professor Usmani single-handedly constructed building of the CRFP hospital and research Lab for free treatment of breast cancer patients with her own money and life-time savings. "It is now for us living to carry on her great mission and complete her vision and passion by making the hospital functional, Professor Nazeefa concluded.