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KARACHI: Speaking in the plenary session
during the JPMC’ s 47th annual symposium Mr. Shaukat Ali Jawaid Chief
Editor of Pulse International has made a passionate plea to the members
of the medical profession to come back to the auditoriums and lecture
halls of medical institutions from banquet halls of five star hotels for
holding of seminar, symposia and medical conferences. Since all this is
funded by the pharmaceutical trade and industry, they eventually pass it
on to the poor patients in the form of high cost of drugs and medicines.
In a country where over 40% of the population lives below the poverty
line, there seems to be no justification for such academic activities at
Five Star Hotels. The organizers should try to reduce the cost of such
academic activities by holding them at medical institutions and giving
emphasis to academics rather than entertainments and socializing.
Prof. Rashid Jooma DG Health presenting
mementoes to Dr. Zafar Sajjad and Dr. Huma Qureshi the two invited
guest speakers in the plenary session during JPMC’s 47th
annual symposium
While some of these conferences have useful scientific programme and
they also attract good attendance but a vast majority of the conferences
held all over Pakistan, he felt, were mere social get together with very
little academic utility. That is why there is very thin attendance in
scientific sessions but one witness’s sudden rush at the time of lunch
and dinner. Pharmaceutical exhibitions organized at the conference venue
presents an atmosphere of a Mela and most of the participants are seen
enjoying hospitality of the industry at different stalls or are seen
busy in collection of gifts and samples. The main objective of some of
these conference organizes, he alleged, was to generate as much funding
as they can by ordering , through coercions and some even go to the
extent of black mailing the pharmaceutical industry to come up with
handsome donations. Accounts of these conferences are seldom audited and
at times it leads to differences among the organizers, splinter groups
have emerged and one see more than one specialty organization within the
same specialty. However, there are a few conscious conference organizers
who do their best to put up a good informative, educative scientific
programme. He was of the view that there is a need for a central body
which should award CME credit for all such conferences and symposia
which can then be used for re-validation and re-certification of
healthcare professionals. Conference accounts should be regularly
audited and the organizers should put up all the details on their
websites to ensure transparency.
Chief Editor Pulse International
Mr. Shaukat Ali Jawaid was one of the invited guest speakers
at the plenary session during JPMC’s 47th annual
symposium. Picture shows Prof. Rashid Jooma DG Health who was
the chief guest presenting him the memento on this occasion.
Tracing the history of Symposia in Pakistan, he said that in 1960s JPMC
annual symposium was the only worthwhile academic activity in Pakistan.
Apart from that Pakistan Science Foundation used to have a session on
Medicine while Biennial conferences of PMA also had good scientific
programme. With the passage of time scientific programme has disappeared
from the PMA conferences. Various institutions have started holding
their own symposia while a large number of specialty organizations have
also come up and they have become much stronger than the PMA. They all
hold their annual and biennial conferences regularly. However, at times
the scientific programme is industry driven, since they fund most of
these CME activities they also try to dictate the scientific programme
which needs to be checked. At most of the conferences, there is emphasis
on quantity rather than quality. The sessions usually start late; there
are too many papers in one session. Time management is extremely poor
with the result that many a times no time is left for discussion which
is extremely important. He also referred to the unethical practices of
the medical profession and pharma industry in the context of these
conferences giving various examples how the invited guest speakers from
abroad had to wait for the audience to turn up. All this leaves a very
bad impression on these invited speakers, he remarked.
The main objective of having a symposia and conference is to present
original research work or accomplishment by the institution and if there
is none, there is no justification for holding such an activity. May be
they can reduce the frequency organizing it biennially instead of making
it an annual feature. Intellectual corruption, he felt, was rampant in
our medical institutions; there is no regard of merit, poor quality of
faculty results in poor quality of research work. Number and quality of
publications in peer reviewed journals at home and aboard is another
yardstick to judge the academic strength of any institution, he
remarked. With so many advances in information technology, availability
of power points and multimedia, there is no justification for poor
quality of presentations these days. Poor quality not only reflects
badly on the presenters but on their seniors as well as the institutions
from where they come. Making a presentation is an art which people
should learn. The standard of JPMC symposium, itself, he remarked has
seen many ups and downs over the last four decades. The quality and
standard of these was dependent on the chairperson and his/her team.
There was a time that JPMC symposium used to attract guest speakers and
participants from all over Pakistan but then at times no body even in
the city knew when the JPMC symposia was held.
Prof. Rashid Jooma DG Health presenting
mementoes to Prof. Ghulam Mahboob, Prof. Tariq Mahmood and Dr. Semin
Jamali during the inaugural session of JPMC’s 47th annual symposium
He suggested that organizers should have a functional scientific
committee. All presentations should be first evaluated and only those
worth presentation should be accepted. There should be emphasis on
quality rather than quantity. There should be few papers in a session
with adequate time for discussion. Time management should be improved
with the chairpersons monitoring the timing and also summing up the
session with take home messages. Financial support from the pharma
industry should be used to improve facilities, services, offering
stipends to postgraduates, funding research projects, improvement of
library facilities, provision of books and journals etc., rather than
wasting them on entertainment, lunches and dinners at Five Star Hotels
and music, variety programmes. If the profession does feel its need,
they should organize such entertainment through personal contributions.
The recent malicious campaign against the medical profession in the
media, which is not at all justified, he said, pains me but then the
medical profession has to initiate self monitoring and accountability.
It can be done by the medical institutions themselves and by the
specialty organizations. The seniors and peers in the medical profession
have the responsibility to set example, become role models for others to
follow, he remarked.
CME and the situation in Pakistan
Dr. Zaffar Sajjad from Aga Khan University in his plenary
talk emphasized the importance of Continuing Medical Education besides
the need for re-validation and re-certification of healthcare
professionals. Speaking about the medical errors, he said that in a
highly developed country like United States, ninety eight thousand
medical errors occurred during last year. They document all this and
then audit all those to learn from those and avoid them in the future.
No such system exists in Pakistan. CME is not mandatory in any of the
institutions in the country except Aga Khan University where the faculty
members have to provide details of their academic accomplishments every
year. Re-certification has started in UK recently while in USA it is
done by the different Boards and ACCME. He suggested that the we can
start these CME activities through the specialty organizations to begin
with but their track record shows that it may not be an ideal way to go.
There are certain barriers to CME in Pakistan and time has come that we
must have some system of CME credit, CME and CPD, re-certification and
re-validation of healthcare professionals to improve patient safety.
Members of the JPMC Academic Council sitting
on the dais during the JPMC”s 47th annual symposium
National Survey on Hepatitis B & C in
Pakistan
Dr. Huma Qureshi Executive Director Pakistan Medical
Research Council delivered her plenary talk on how to improve the
research culture in Pakistan. She gave the details of the national
survey on the prevalence of Hepatitis B and C conducted by the PMRC in
collaboration with different other institutions. Over forty seven
thousand persons were screened from all over the country. The overall
prevalence of Hepatitis B was 2.5% and Hepatitis-C was 4.9% while HBsAg
positive cases was 14.4%. The risk factors included increased use of
therapeutic injections. To control this she suggested increased
Hepatitis-B vaccination in new born and high risk groups. For HCV the
use of therapeutic injections should be curtailed with strong injection
safety measures.
In his concluding remarked Prof. Rashid Jooma DG Health who was chairing
this session said that we are planning a national CME scheme and in fact
PM&DC has a special committee working on this. He asked Dr. Zaffar
Sajjad to co-operate with this committee so that we can utilize his
expertise in this regard. Referring to the presentation by Mr. Shaukat
Ali Jawaid, he said that we all know he is a senior medical journalist
working in this field for so many years. He has also authored quite a
few books and if you read his writings, over the years he has become the
conscience of the medical profession. He has shed some light on certain
malpractices. We all need to listen to him and see how we can improve
the present state of affairs. Dr. Huma Qureshi’s data did show some very
high prevalence of Hepatitis B and C in certain districts but actually
it was not the mandate of that survey. The objective was to find out the
national prevalence of these viral diseases to plan for future.
Effective measures are being taken to control Hepatitis, he remarked. |
