Higher Education Commission (HEC)'s Executive Director, Professor Dr Arshad Ali has said the concept of professionalism in medicine needs to adapt and change in an increasingly consumerist healthcare sphere. "A patient's trust in a doctor is no longer assumed; it is reached through a display of appropriate professional qualities such as expertise, probity, integrity and many other things," he said, while addressing at the inaugural session of an international conference on medical education here at the University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Friday.
Professor Arshad further said that true professionalism came into play where mistakes were made. "Knowing what to do when things go wrong and how to react appropriately can make all the difference in ensuring high standards of patient care," he opined. Iranian Deputy Counsel General in Lahore Ali Asghar said UHS should play a key role in promoting multi-disciplinary research in the country.
The Secretary, Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education, Punjab, Najam Ahmad Shah, said that although the primary role of a doctor was that of the healer, one must simultaneously maintain professionalism in medical practice. "Medical professionalism is more relevant now than ever before, partly because of recent high profile cases that have highlighted poor professionalism," he added.
He emphasized the need of redefining and developing professionalism in today's undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. President, Islamic World Science Citation Centre (ISC), Shiraz, Iran, Dr Mohammad Javed Dehghani, said Pakistan had shown excellent performance in the form of increase in number of publications in the field of medical and health science. "In last 15 years, the number of research publications in basic medical sciences has increased 1476 percent (from 68 in year 2000 to 1072 in year 2015), in clinical sciences 1313 per cent (106 in year 2000 to 1526 in year 2015), and 775 per cent in health sciences (53 in year 2000 to 464 in year 2015)," he informed.
UHS Vice Chancellor, Major General Professor Muhammad Aslam (Retd), pro-vice-chancellor Professor Junaid Sarfraz Khan, Director Medical Education, Professor I A Naveed, President, Council for Collaboration in Medical Education (CCME) Dr Mussarat ul Hasnain and Secretary General CCME, Professor Dr Nadeem Hafeez Butt also spoke on the occasion.