LAHORE - Advisor to Chief Minister Punjab on Health Kh Salman Rafiq has urged medical universities and colleges to come up with recommendations and training models to improve healthcare delivery system of the country.
Addressing the closing ceremony of three-day international medical education conference “AEME 2014” at the University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Sunday, he said that the government honoured the opinion of technocrats on issues related to healthcare and was trying to minimize the role of bureaucracy in such matters.
 President, World Federation for Medical Education Prof Stefan Lindgren said that the quality of scientific work being done in Pakistan was no less by any means when compared with that being done in the universities of UK and USA. He urged the medical faculty and the students to publish more in international journals.
Prof Janet Grant of the Open University, UK, said that the people of Pakistan themselves had the solution to all the problems being faced by them. They needed to import good ideas and implement them keeping in view the local realities.
UHS Vice Chancellor Maj Gen (R) Prof Muhammad Aslam said that the time was right to bring in some changes in the ways medicine is practiced today.
“It is better that we envision and realize these changes and recommendations than having such changes imposed upon us”, he added.  Vice Chancellor Isra University Prof Ghulamqadir Qazi and Secretary General AEME Dr Umar Ali Khan also spoke on the occasion. 
The Association for Excellence in Medical Education (AEME) Conference was organized in public-private partnership and major teaching and medical institutions collaborated for the event including UHS, Isra University Islamabad, King Edward Medical University (KEMU), Lahore, Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC) Lahore, Fatima Jinnah Medical College, (FJMC) Lahore, College of Physician and Surgeons of Pakistan (CPSP), Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS), Lahore, CMH Lahore Medical College and Lahore Medical and Dental College, Lahore. During the course of the conference there were 58 poster presentations, 87 paper presentations, 9 state-of-the-art lectures and 32 workshops on major aspects of medical education such as curricula development, assessment, medical writing, research, teaching and learning, leadership, professionalism, capacity building, program evaluation, undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.