Sindh Governor, Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan has emphasised that no conscientious person can be oblivious to the needs of the community in which he works and it is imperative to change the present medical curriculum to bring it more in line with the true requirements of the society.
In his message read out at the inaugural session of the three-day International Conference on Community Oriented Medical Education at Baqai Medical University, the governor asserted that developing nations needed to evolve special strategies in order to reach the doorsteps of the common man.
Syed Sardar Ahmed, the Senior Minister for Sindh who also holds the portfolio of finance ministry speaking on the occasion highlighted the role of private sector medical colleges in reforming the curricula of medical colleges so that the fresh graduates could better serve the community. He emphasised that the public sector had a major responsibility in this regard.
The senior minister remarked that community oriented medical education was the way to carry out "Huqooqul Ebad" or services to the masses adding that the Sindh government was paying increased attention to the social sectors and was siphoning off the majority of funds received from the Asian Development Bank for health, education and poverty reduction.
The acting WHO Country Representative to Pakistan, Dr Najibullah Mojaddedi in his address reminded that Pakistan has been making efforts over the last two decades to bring its 57 year old system of medical education more in line with the requirements of local medical system and the community needs.
He observed that internationally medical colleges are under considerable pressure to reform their conventional curricula and teaching environment and methodology.
In line with these developments, the government of Pakistan became a signatory to the Edinburgh Declaration in 1988 that called for reforming medical education in the country by addressing the main issues confronting its health services today such as equity an access to health care, quality of care, patients satisfaction, proper utilisation of scant resources in health sector, environmental determinants of health and achieving cost efficiency in health interventions.
Dr Mojaddedi observed that the main challenge was to produce medical graduates who have the requisite competence to take on these fundamental issues facing the health sector and can work as care givers, decision makers, skillful communicators, community leaders and efficient manager at the same time.
In order to translate this vision into concrete educational objectives the integral components of curriculum design had been organised by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council for clinical teaching at community level conducting training in smaller groups, less emphasis on lectures and more on tutorials and workshops, besides continuous internal assessments.
The acting country representative of WHO to Pakistan emphasised that the government of Pakistan duly approved the COME methodology proposed by the World Health Organisation in 1995 and a project initiated in 1996 in four medical colleges of the country namely Dow Medical College, Karachi (now upgraded as university), Bolan Medical College Quetta, King Edward Medical College Lahore and Ayub Medical College Abbotabad.
Professor John Beasley of the University of Wisconsin, Dr S. M. Rab (former Sindh health minister), Lieutenant General Syed Azhar Ahmed (Retd), Vice-chancellor, Baqai Medical University, Professor Zahida Baqai and Professor Irshad Waheed also spoke on the occasion.