Keeping the tradition of imparting medical education using all modern and established ways, Muhammad Medical College continues to shine and beats its own created records every year. It is one of the rare Medical Colleges in Pakistan which runs not only regular classes and other routine curricular activities, but has also been running regular annual programmes to prepare future doctors in all professional and educational fields. It strongly believes in the fact that today’s students are tomorrow’s teachers. Hence MMC puts extra efforts in training tomorrow’s trainers.
One of the activities it regularly does is holding Annual Symposia. So far MMC has done this annual without break for nearly 2 decades. This Annual symposium has different theme topics for different years, depending on the hot and most important topic and issue in medical world at the time. Renowned teachers and doctors from all over Pakistan have been invited to present their research, alongside research by the students and doctors of MMC itself. This is indeed a very popular activity, and allows not only the students of MMC, but also students and doctors of Mirpurkhas region to have first hand taste of advance medical research presentations.
Additionally, MMC runs a “Mini-Symposium”, where the regular them is “Students as Teachers”. Here, final year students are given topics in groups of about 4 students to present and teach. They are encouraged and helped by senior teachers to chose and find recent advance in those topics, and present them in the form of scientific poster as well as oral presentation. It is a 2-day programme, in which the second day is dedicated to Gastroenterology and Hepatology Seminar, where senior teachers from MMC as well as from different parts of Pakistan are invited to teach important topics in these areas to medical students and doctors.
It was with this backdrop that MMC held its 11th Annual Gastroenterology & Hepatology Seminar, and 6th Annual Mini-symposium on 4-5 April 2018 at Mrs Razia Ali Muhammad Memorial Auditorium and its grounds. A large number of Pharmaceutical Companies held their stalls in the grounds to showcase their regular and new products for the educational and practical benefits of today’s as well as tomorrow’s doctors.
On the first day, (4th April), Final year MMC students in groups presented their posters and oral presentations to a large number of senior doctors. Their topics covered a variety of Medical, Surgical and Gynaecological issues. The quality of their presentation was judged by a panel of senior professors.
On the second day, Vice Principal Professor Shams ul-Arfeen Khan kept his tradition of having the honour of reciting verses from Holy Quran. This was followed by recitation of Na’at Rasool e Maqbool by a final year student. The seminar was moderated by Professor of Medicine Dr. S Zafar Abbas. He wecomed senior Medical students and doctors of all levels at Muhammad Medical College as well as senior physicians from Mirpurkhas and nearby tows and cities. Prof Zafar Abbas then described the programme ahead, and threw light on the importance of holding such academically important programmes at teaching institutions regularly, which are different from routine academic activities. Various talks on Gastroenterology and Hepatology were then given by senior doctors, including the visiting professor of Gastroenterology in Baqai Medical University, Karachi Professor Kareem Qamaruddin. At the end of the programme, Dean of Surgery, Professor Syed Razi Muhammad gave an inspirational talk to medical students and talked in length about the importance of Medical Ethics, and the role of holding a good personal character in becoming a good doctor.
Last 2 weeks at MMC had seen an intensive course in Gastroenterology and Hepatology, which ended in a quiz competition on 3rd April 2018. Final year medical students had an active participation in it. Those who secured distinction marks in the quiz, poster and oral presentation were distributed certificates and shields in this seminar. This was followed by concluding remarks by Professor Syed Razi Muhammad. He pointed out the salient features from all talks and emphasized upon the importance of holding such high quality national seminars in remote areas like Mirpurkhas. He stressed upon the students to strive and become good human as well as a good doctor. He thanked the audience and the speakers who had travelled long distances to participate in this seminar. He also expressed his thanks to all the pharmaceutical companies who sponsored this seminar.