Award of Excellence in Education
Dr Shaista Masood Khan
The Award of Excellence in Education is awarded to "recognise publicly and to honour faculty who have made outstanding contributions to education." Recognition is based upon the nature and effect of the contributions by the nominee to education at any level including diploma programmes, continuing and professional education, undergraduate and graduate programmes of study. The educational activity may include curriculum and course design, evaluation of programmes and students, development of learning resources, and teaching.
This year, Dr Shaista Masood Khan is the recipient of the Award of Excellence in Education.
Following her graduation from Dow Medical College, Dr Khan was named a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh in 1981. After serving in Saudi Arabia, she joined AKU in 1986 as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, raising to the rank of Professor of Surgery in 2006.
During the early phases of her academic career, Dr Khan chose to develop her skill in the area of breast screening and reconstructive surgery. These skills have enabled her to establish the first Breast Cancer Surgery unit in Pakistan. This unique facility attracts patients from across the country. In addition, the programme associated with the unit has become the first fellowship programme in breast disease and provides training to postgraduate medical education students in this important area of specialisation.
As a member of the University's task force to develop a new MBBS curriculum, Dr Khan has made significant contributions to the development, design and implementation of the revised undergraduate medical curriculum at AKU. This curriculum is regarded as a model for MBBS programmes and the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council has suggested all other medical colleges in the country introduce it to their institution.
Dr Khan is the recipient of an outstanding teacher's award that serves as a testament to her advocacy of contextual learning and correlating assessment.
University Award of Distinction
Dr Terrrence Gibson and Dr Riaz Qureshi
The University Award of Distinction award is presented to "recognise publicly and to honour outstanding persons who have contributed constructively and consistently to the development of the University."
This year, the first recipient is Dr Terrance Gibson.
Dr Terrence Gibson's involvement with Pakistan and AKU dates back to 1992 when he first came to the University as a visiting professor. A graduate of Guy's Hospital Medical School, he is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians London and Edinburgh. Following fellowships in medicine and rheumatology, including a clinical fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr Gibson was appointed as a consultant physician at Guy's Hospital where he continues to work as a senior physician.
At AKU, Dr Gibson helped to establish the practice of rheumatology and trained upcoming physicians with an interest in the practice. He has run a highly successful and well-funded programme of fellowship training for AKU faculty in various training facilities in the UK. In the process he has helped to develop AKU faculty not only in rheumatology but also in nephrology, internal medicine, gastroenterology, pulmonology and other areas outside the medical specialties. At the national level, Dr Gibson has been instrumental in founding and sustaining the Pakistan Society of Rheumatology through his active and concerted participation.
Dr Gibson has published extensively in major peer review journals, having contributed over 100 original articles, editorials and reviews. He has written chapters for nine books and published three books on rheumatology and medicine for medical students and has presented papers at major clinical meetings around the world.
Dr Gibson's academic titles include honorary senior lecturer at St Thomas's Medical School, senior lecturer in medicine at the University of Otago and visiting professor in the Department of Medicine at AKU.
In addition to all of these accomplishments Dr Gibson recently participated in the 2010 New York City Marathon. He completing the course in five hours, 11 minutes and 15 second; coming in 167th of the 320 runners in his age group.
The Board of Trustees has awarded a second Award of Distinction and this year's second recipient is Dr Riaz Qureshi.
Dr Qureshi joined AKU in 1994 at the time when the Postgraduate Medical Education Fellowship Programme in Family Medicine was approved by the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Pakistan and was the only residency training programme in the discipline in the country.
Dr Qureshi obtained his MBBS from Dow Medical College and was named a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, United Kingdom in 1993. He joined AKU as an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine in 1994 and, in 2000, gained the distinction of being the founding Professor and Chair of the Family Medicine department.
Dr Qureshi is a widely respected figure across the University's Medical College and School of Nursing where he has played a significant role in mentoring AKU faculty at every level. His contributions have helped to establish a broader understanding in Pakistan of the importance of family medicine in the overall spectrum of clinical practice.
For promoting and developing Family Medicine internationally, Dr Qureshi was awarded the President's Medal by the Royal College of General Practitioners, UK in 2008. This was the first such medal to be awarded by the Royal College in their 60-year history.
Dr Qureshi is also an honorary adviser to the Royal College of General Practitioners in the development of Family Medicine in South Asia and Middle East regions. He is an examiner for the Arab, Saudi, South Asia, Oman and Sri Lanka Family Medicine Boards.
Best Graduate Award of Aga Khan University Medical College
Saulat Sajjad Sheik
The Best Graduate Award in the Medical College is given to the graduate who achieves the highest aggregate score in the certifying examinations during the five-year course leading to the MBBS degree. The recipient, this year, is Saulat Sajjad Sheikh.
Outstanding Graduate Award of Aga Khan University School of Nursing
Rinam Rahmatullah
The award is given to the best nursing student who scores the highest Grade Point Average among the three-year diploma, four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) and the two-year Post-RN BScN degree programmes. The student is also the recipient of Award of Nursing Practice, given to the graduate whose clinical and community practice reflects a client-centered approach, distinctive critical thinking, problem solving abilities, and ethical decision making.
The recipient of this year's award is Rinam Rahmatullah.
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