Workshops
Suturing Workshop 2022
Like every year, this year SIG held its suturing workshop on 28th March 2022!
It was an amazing learning experience for all these surgery enthusiasts. With the mentoring of our superb team of residents, Omair, Afifa, Suha and Haseeb, the students were able to learn different types of threads, different types of sutures, and different types of knots. They were able to practice these skills several times. Indeed a wonderful hands-on experience for all those interested in pursuing surgery!
A Stitch in Time: Suturing Workshop 2021
Surgery Interest Group conducted its suturing workshop on 16th September, 2021. Dr. Hina Inam, Dr. Shayan Khalid, Dr. Omair Saleem, Dr. Ibrahim Chapra and Dr Tahira Riaz taught basic suturing skills to young aspiring surgeons! It was a memorable day with lots of learning and excitement!
CV Building and Email Writing:
A CME accredited virtual workshop conducted by Dr. Muhammad Ali, an AKU alumnus from the class of 2020 and our former SIG convener 2019-2020, an extraordinary student who has been mentoring students ever since his time in AKU. He taught students all the necessary skills required to write a CV during medical school and beyond along with the essential skills required for professional email writing.
Wet Lab: Brain Tumor Surgery
A two-day neurosurgery workshop for aspiring neurosurgeons. A one of its kind workshop on Brain Tumor Surgery was organised by Pakistan Society of Neuro-Oncology (PASNO) and Department of Surgery, Aga Khan University in collaboration with the Neuroscience Interest Group (NSIG), Surgery Interest Group (SIG) and Technology Innovation Support Center (TISC), Aga Khan University.
From polishing fine motor skills under the microscope and performing craniotomies on coconuts and 3D skulls to dissecting animal brains and interpreting MRI films - the workshop, although basic level, was enough to excite the curious minds to pursue their dreams.
Knot-tying Workshop-Virtual:
Surgery Interest Group organized a virtual Surgical Knot Tying workshop as a part of the 6th AKU Annual Surgical Conference. Despite a lot of limitations, such as the pandemic and in-person workshops not being a possibility, we conducted a successful virtual workshop. This workshop was attended by around 80 medical students (1st year to 4th year students) from various medical schools across Pakistan. The residents leading the workshop, taught the basics of knot tying and how to tie a single handed square knot. To give participants a personalised experience, they were divided into breakout rooms, with each room headed by a resident. A step by step approach was used to demonstrate the skill, with students practicing their knots and residents providing feedback and helping identifying errors simultaneously. At the end, each student also got the opportunity to demonstrate the skill that they learned during the workshop, after which the residents provided individual feedback to all the students.
The students shared positive reviews about the workshop, stating that it was a great learning experience and that they would be eager to be a part of more workshops that teach various surgical skills.
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CV Writing Workshop:
Another Saturday, another feat accomplished! The Surgery Interest Group (SIG) hosted an interactive talk by Dr. Mustafa Iftikhar, graduate of the Class of 2016, titled ‘CV writing Workshop’, allowing 600+ medical students and graduates across Pakistan to learn how to build CV from scratch. The workshop was a much-needed guide on this challenging part of the residency application. But that’s not all, Dr. Mustafa also enlightened us with his wisdom, giving tips and tricks on a number of topics, from medical school to personal statements, in an hour-long question-and-answer session. Students who attended the workshop didn’t just gain confidence in building their CV, they got a renewed motivation to achieve their dreams.
Suturing & Knot-Tying Workshops:
Since its inception, SIG has conducted multiple suturing workshops for medical students at AKU under the guidance of Dr. Sadaf Khan, Dr. Amir Shariff, Dr. Hina Inam, Dr. Syed Arish Haider, Dr. Fatima Mustansir and many more wonderful mentors. Most recently, as part of the Trauma Conference, SIG conducted a large scale workshop for medical students from all over Karachi through its Ambassadors' Programme, which saw over 100 participants.
Email Writing Workshop:
Surgery Interest Group conducted their first-ever "Email Writing Workshop" with Dr. Shahyan Bakhtiyar (AKU Class of 2016) on Friday, December 13, 2019. Dr Bakhtiyar is a preliminary match for surgery at Johns Hopkins University. He did Clinical Outcomes Research at Baylor College of Medicine and Masters in Bioengineering from Rice University. The workshop focused on skill development and etiquette of email writing for electives and post-doctoral positions. The session was attended by several students from the student body who praised the effectiveness and relevance of the session.
Surgical Etiquettes:
On popular demand, SIG organized a surgical etiquette workshop with Huzaifa Zafar (Class of 2020), who wanted to mentor his batchmates and juniors after returning from his double surgery electives in the US. He focused on the ‘DOs and DON’Ts’ of the operating room, expectations from a medical student at electives, preparation of a "Patient List" before morning rounds, wet & dry scrubbing techniques, and wound dressing.
Suturing workshop for students all over the Karachi:
Suturing Workshop led by Dr. Hina Inam, Dr. Tariq Khan, Dr. Yasir Bilal, Dr. Sara Iqbal, Dr. Mustafa Kamal, Dr. Mohammed bin Pervaiz and our student mentors from SIG was arranged for the medical students. This workshop was a huge milestone, as SIG organized this for the very first time for surgery enthusiast students from 4 different medical colleges from all over Karachi!
