VIEW: Keeping doctors at home —Ali Hashmi
Excerpts Only
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This, by the way, is not entirely by choice. In an internet discussion group which I run, the topic of returning to Pakistan, both to reunite with families as well as to give something back to Pakistan, regularly comes up. However, the obstacles are many and the chances of success mixed. A few hardy ones have actually tried only to be disillusioned. I myself have tried on two separate occasions to explore job and career opportunities in Lahore including at KEMU. Each time, I have been rebuffed by medical school administrators and former professors whose responses to my desire to return and contribute something to my alma mater and my country have ranged from contemptuous dismissal to incredulity that I would be willing to give up a lucrative practice in America to “don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you” platitudes.
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Those friends who did stay in Pakistan, usually because of family or visa issues, tell horror stories of being repeatedly passed over for promotions for lack of the right connections, being asked to tolerate and participate in unprofessional, unethical, sometimes illegal activities to get ahead in their careers and being totally sidelined if they refused.
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A successful model already exists in the form of the Aga Khan University Hospital, an institution that has an enviable record of attracting their top alumni back from the West after training by offering them attractive salaries, a collegial and stimulating working environment and reasonable chances for career advancement. I know for a fact that if I were offered those things, I would jump at the chance to return to Pakistan and truly help make KEMU a world class university.
The author is a graduate of King Edward Medical University, Class of 1991 and currently a Psychiatrist practising in Arkansas, USA.
Ismailimail 