PESHAWAR: The College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan has accredited five wards including three at Lady Reading Hospital and one each at Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar for postgraduate training.
The accreditation of five more wards by CPSP has brought the total number of recognised wards to 246 in public sector hospitals of the province.
“There are total 242 recognised institutions for FCPS and MCPS training in Pakistan that offered training in medical specialties in 1855 wards throughout the country. These include 23 institutions in KP, 102 in Punjab, 67 in Sindh, five in Balochistan, three in Azad Kashmir, 18 in Islamabad and 24 oversees,” Prof Waqar Alam Jan, the Peshawar-based regional director of CPSP, told Dawn.
He said that CPSP, established in 1962 at a tiny office in Karachi, was producing FCPS in 73 and MCPS in 22 disciplines.
Prof Waqar, who is also chairman of surgery department at LRH, said that accreditation of a ward was a long process that required faculty, equipments and infrastructure after which they carried out inspection to accept or reject the application for recognition.
He said that about 3,500 trainee medical officers (TMOs) were being imparted postgraduate courses in different disciplines in the province. He said that the most significant was the recognition of emergency medicine at LRH, the first public sector hospital to start imparting training in trauma and emergency.
Similarly, Oculoplasty and paediatric ophthalmology have been accredited at KTH and HMC respectively.
LRH with 30, KTH with 24 and HMC with 23 specialties impart training in MCPS and FCPS courses. The newly-accredited wards have got highly qualified specialists for which they were allowed to train specialists.
“However, those consultants would undergo mandatory workshops after which each supervisor would be allowed to induct four TMOs. The TMOs complete five-year training during which they are subjected to tough examination,” said Prof Waqar.
Faqir Gul Shah, the manager of regional centre, said that the fellows got highly paid jobs in foreign countries owing to the efforts of Prof Zafarullah Chaudhry, the president, and Prof Khalid Masood Gondal, the director-general international relations of CPSP.
“We introduce new concepts and update our syllabus frequently to cater to the needs posed by development in the area of medical sciences globally,” he said.
However, he said that they still needed to develop more specialties in the province for which academic, clinical and infrastructural requirements were being fulfilled before being accredited. Prof Mukhtiar Zaman Afridi, the medical director of LRH, told Dawn that they got the services of two trauma consultants from UK due to which the emergency medicine department was accredited for postgraduate training.
“Our EMD has 400 trained staffers, who provide treatment to about 1,000 patients round-the-clock. We would soon be inducting TMOs for training in trauma first time in the province,” he said.
Prof Mukhtiar said that LRH would be pioneering in production of trauma specialists, who would be deployed in other hospitals too. “We have got consultants for gynea, paeds and orthopedics at the EMD. The patients are being treated promptly which has reduced the chances of complications,” he added. Dr Arif Raza Khan, the CPSP joint controller examination, said they signed Memorandum of Understanding with Nepal, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia due to which the fellows got treatment at par with those of UK and USA. “A centre is being opened in Birmingham also,” he added.
The regional centre, established in 1994, has been playing significant role in production of indigenous specialists, who account for 80 per cent of the specialised treatment in the province. Prof Shehzad Akbar Khan, the medical director of HMC, told Dawn that they required more specialties and latest techniques for which efforts were in progress. “We have state-of-the-art equipments which benefit TMOs as well as patients,” he said.