Association of Fatima Jinnah Old Graduates (AFJOG), Faculty and Teaching Staff of the Fatima Jinnah Medical College have demanded of the Punjab government to appoint the senior most female professor doctor, as Principal FJMC, after retirement of the incumbent Principal Professor Rakhshanda Rehman next month.
President Dr Zahida Ijaz Khwaja, Executive Committee AFJOG, Faculty and Teaching Staff said on Monday that FJMC is basically a female institution founded by Madre-e-Millat Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, herself a medical doctor (a dentist), in 1948. The college is the only one of its kind in the world for Pakistani and Muslim women. They had been demanding that only a female professor doctor should be appointed Principal of this prestigious medical institution on merit, as there was no valid reason for appointment of a male principal in a female college.
The Teaching Faculty and the AFJOG signed a resolution reiterating that senior most female professor should be appointed after retirement of the incumbent female principal to maintain the female status /character of the world famous college. Talking to this scribe a Faculty Member said that the Punjab Health Department had categorically resolved the issue of Principal of this female College in 1980 in its letter vide No SOP&P79-5/12 dated Ist July 1980 that only female professor doctors would be appointed principals of FJMC.
She said that a galaxy of female professor doctors, including Dr Professor Nabiha, Dr Professor Nasima, Dr Professor Bilqees Fatima, Dr Professor Asmat Qazi, Dr Professor Fakhur-un-Nisa and Dr Professor Khalida Usmani had carried out the academic and administrative management of the college with distinction and meritoriously in the past.
However AFJOG and faculty members lamented that some politically influential and well connected male professor doctors had also managed appointment as Principals of FJMC in the past, which created resentment among the female professors. They resolved to continue their struggle for realisation of their genuine rights and maintain the highest standard of medical education of the college as its attracts students from 25 Muslim countries.