Kabul: Seven Afghan doctors including two females and 5 males received their graduation certificates at the seventh Postgraduate Medical Education Programme's (PGME) graduation ceremony on Saturday, May 28, 2022, at FMIC's auditorium.
This year, two doctors from pathology, three from paediatric medicine, one from radiology and one from paediatric surgery graduated after four years of exploring the theory, practice and research in their fields plus two months of rotation at Aga Khan University Hospital (AKU) in Karachi, Pakistan.
H.E. Al-Haj Dr Qalandar Ibaad, the Acting Minister of Public Health (MoPH), Afghanistan attended the event as the chief guest along with other officials from MoPH, representatives from AKDN agencies, Mrs Sonia Cautain, Head of Mission at La Chaine de l'Espoir in Afghanistan. Mr Lee Hilling, Chairman of the FMIC Board and representatives from AKU were connected online during the event.
The session started with the recitation of the Holy Quran followed by the opening remarks of Mr Nadeem Mustafa Khan, Senior Advisor to the President at AKU who mentioned the importance of partnership and joint effort of FMIC's partners and donors to strengthen the healthcare system in Afghanistan.
Likewise, Dr Farhat Abbas, Professor and Associate Vice Provost, AKU and Chair of Academic Committee, FMIC mentioned that investing in education, and capacity building is the key solution in a country like Afghanistan and Education is the cheapest defence of a nation.
The Acting Minister of Public Health, Al-Haj Dr Qalandar Ibaad in his remark insisted on promoting the healthcare system in Afghanistan through training male and female doctors and nurses of Afghanistan. The role of FMIC in training the doctors through using the knowledge and experience of AKU is important. “The linkage with the Aga Khan University can enable us to build high-quality hospitals in different parts of Afghanistan which suffer from the dire need of healthcare", he added.
Ms Sonia Cautain, Head of Mission at La Chain de l'Espoir (CDE) in Afghanistan in her remark focused on the long-lasting support of CDE to FMIC's operations and PGME programme. She further added that CDE is committed to promoting the training programmes in medical specialities. She appreciated the young doctors who used their time and effort to serve the in-need patients of Afghanistan.
Dr Eraj Sarwari, in his valedictory speech, reminded the efforts and hard-working of the residents over the last five years. He mentioned that the graduation ceremony is a start for further learning rather than the end of a journey. He added that the graduated doctors are fully committed to serving the patients in every situation in Afghanistan.
FMIC till to-date graduated 74 doctors including the first females in pathology, radiology, paediatric surgery and anaesthesia. Currently, the PGME Programme is training 22 residents in 9 disciplines of anaesthesia, cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, orthopaedics, pathology paediatric medicine, paediatric surgery, and radiology. FMIC will take 18 new residents in the above disciplines in 2022.
FMIC initiated its PGME Programme in 2012 in partnership with the AKU and Directorate of MoPH with support from the Government of Canada, Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) as a way of building and strengthening the national healthcare.
