The Department of Surgery at Aga Khan University Medical College Pakistan (MC, P) celebrates a milestone moment launching their new book titled “Surgical Education and Training in Pakistan: Creating a Model”. It is the collaborative product of surgeons Dr Syed Ather Enam, Dr Masood Umer and Dr M. Hammad Ather.
The book details how surgical training programmes can be improved in Pakistan and in other low-and-middle income countries (LMICs), based on learnings from the surgical training program
mes offered at AKU over the past 4 decades. This book, published with Cambridge Scholar Publishing, covers the process of starting a new surgical training programme in Pakistan in great detail. The content covers existing evaluation processes, provides insights into career counselling and trainees' rights, along with valuable input from renowned practitioners in the field about their own personal journeys.
While Drs Enam, Umer and Ather are the primary editors of the book, there are numerous faculty from departments across AKU MC, P who have contributed to its original content, including Dean Adil Haider. The book showcases a series of monologues from renowned practitioners, with the intention to help readers comprehensively understand the journey to becoming a top surgical practitioner; Some of the institutions represented in the book by their team members’ contributions include Dow University of Health Sciences, Dr. Ziauddin Hospital, University of Aberdeen, University Children's Hospital Zurich, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, and Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Reflecting upon the challenges of delivering world-class surgical education and training within LMIC resource constrained settings, the book demonstrates how to move forward and establish best practices in such environments with their unique challenges. It will be an incredible resource for those looking to replicate AKU’s efforts, and its knowledge holds the power to drive improvements in systems and programmes across Pakistan.
Dr Saleem Islam, Chair Department of Surgery, shared his thoughts that “Most importantly, this book presents a local flavour to the subject area which is very rare to find in a published situation. The other thing to note is diversity in the topics and also in the diversity of authors. All of this reflects that the department has not only been a clinical powerhouse, it is also at the forefront of education and research efforts at AKU. We hope this is just a start and that the department will look to publish more things with a local flavour as well as an international audience”
The book has been dedicated to the late Dr Amir Shariff, a beloved faculty member from the Department of Surgery and alumna from the MBBS Class of 2003.
