Advancement of Medical Journalism, Professional Capacity Building of HCPs:

PJMS hosts reception to recognize contributions
by eminent medical personalities

Those honoured include Prof. Mahmood Ali Malik, Prof. Akbar Chaudhry,
Prof. Shaharyar Sheikh, Prof. Javed Akram and Prof. Maj.Gen. M. Aslam

LAHORE: Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences hosted a reception in honour of five eminent medical personalities to recognize their contributions to promote medical journalism, scientific publications and professional capacity building of healthcare professionals. Those honored at the reception organized at a local hotel here on Sunday October 5th 2025 included Prof. Mahmood Ali Malik former Principal of King Edward Medical College, Prof. M. Akbar Chaudhry former Principal of Fatima Jinnah Medial College, Prof. Shaharyar Sheikh former Executive Director of Punjab Institute of Cardiology who also had the rare distinction of being elected as President of World Heart Federation, Prof. Maj.Gen. Muhammad Aslam former Vice Chancellor of University of Health Sciences Lahore and Prof. Javed Akram another former VC of UHS Lahore. All of them have a brilliant academic record and have served as Principal or VC at many other medical institutions in Pakistan.
The reception was attended by over one hundred Professors and Principals of various medical colleges besides some selected representatives of the society. Speaking on the occasion Mr. Shaukat Ali Jawaid Chief Editor of Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences not only traced the history of medical journalism in Pakistan, his own processional career but also highlighted the contributions of the personalities for whom the reception was organized.

This, he said, was not the first reception hosted by PJMS. In fact, a similar reception was hosted for Prof. Abdus Samad an eminent Cardiologist couple of years ago. That was followed by a reception for late Prof. Mahmood Raza former Principal of Bolan Medical College from Quetta. More recently a reception was hosted in honour of late Prof. Ejaz Ahmad Vohra about two years ago. I always remember my benefactors and this is not going to be the last reception. Some more similar receptions will be organized in the days to come. We should not try to find out Angels in Pakistan, all human beings have some positive qualities. Hence one should benefit from that and leave others. I have followed this throughout my professional career spread over five decades and tried to learn from every one and it has worked very well for me. Everybody was willing to help me and I being a keen learner and observer, tried to benefit the most. He further stated that one should not wait for opportunities, rather create opportunities and garb the opportunities that come in the way to move forward.

Continuing he said, I started my professional love affair with medical journalism when I joined Pakistan Medical Review a monthly publication from Karachi in February 1966. We later published the first medical newspaper in Pakistan on November 1st 1968. It was in 1975 that I founded Pakistan Medical Journalists Association (PMJA), In 1979 I introduced Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA) in Pakistan. I visited BMJ offices in UK in 1982 and became member of British Medical Journalists Association the same year. I started quarterly medical journal “Specialist” in April 1984 which was later renamed as Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences in January 2000 when the medical newspaper being published with the Title of “Doctor” was also renamed as Pulse International.

First issue of the Journal was devoted to Cardiovascular Diseases with Dr. Ali Muhammad Chaudhry an eminent cardiologist from Hyderabad as Guest Editor. I met Dr. Zia ur Rehman President of KEMCANA in Miami in 1985 while attending World Conference of Head and Neck Surgery. He invited me to attend their meetings in USA as well. On invitation from APPNA I attended their eight meetings in United States. I used to go after every two years, would buy my own ticket and APPNA was kind enough to offer local hospitality during the conference. I also had the opportunity to enjoy hospitality of many leaders of APPNA. I also used this opportunity to visit various states of USA and also visited, Harvard university , John Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, universities in Connecticut, Dallas Texas, Chicago, Los Aneles, San Francisco, FDA Headquarters, National Institute of Health and numerus tertiary healthcare facilities in major cities and hospitals in smaller towns, spent some time with Pakistani Residents under training and all this provided me an excellent opportunity to learn about medical education and health services in United States.

Workshops and Capacity Building Initiatives

Continuing he said, it was in early 1992 that a meeting of medical editors was held at Karachi Gymkhana. The agenda was how to help train healthcare professionals in the art of scientific writing as the quality of manuscripts that we used to receive for publication mostly used to be very poor. On a suggestion from late Dr. Sarwar Zuberi we decided to organize series of workshops all over Pakistan. The first such seminar was organized at Mayo Hospital Lahore on September 12th 1992. It was chaired by Prof. Bashir Ahmad Principal of KEMC along with Prof. Mahmood Ali Malik, Prof. Tahir Saeed Haroon. Prof. Ijaz Ahsan was also one of the speakers. Late Dr. Ijaz Hussain a brilliant surgeon who died at a very young age was the local coordinator and Dr. Javed Akram then Assistant Professor with Prof. Mahmood Ali Malik was the organizing secretary. It was very well attended. One of the suggestions made by us was that without waiting for PM&DC, final year class should have a few lectures on scientific writing and publications to promote research culture. Prof. Sultan Farooqui from CPSP was kind enough to provide return ticket for Dr. S.J. Zuberi and one thousand rupees for her stay for a night.

Later we decided to have a workshop at CPSP in Karachi with the objective of train the trainers hoping that they would carry this movement forward but due to some reasons, it did not work. This three days’ workshop at CPSP was held from January 29-31st 1995. Having failed in our mission, with the help of my colleagues I started organizing such workshops at Fatima Jinnah Medical College where Prof. M. Akbar Chaudhry was of great help. We had numerous workshops on scientific writing, publication ethics, peer review. By the time he retired, Prof. Maj.Gen. M. Aslam had been appointed Vice Chancellor of University of Health Sciences hence UHS became our new venue for such workshops and training sessions. Earlier as Principal of Army Medical College, he had been of immense help to organize the first ever conference on Medical Editing in Pakistan. We invited seven guest speakers eminent Editors from Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates besides representative from WHO Mr. Jane Nicholson. Chairman HEC Prof. Attaur Rehman was chief guest in the inaugural session while Surgeon General Pakistan Army Lt. Gen. Mushtaq was chief guest in concluding session. The funds that we saved were used to furnish and equip one of the lectures halls at Army Medical College.

Pakistan Aspirin Foundation

Pakistan Aspirin Foundation was established in 1995 to promote the use of Aspirin in its well established and emerging new indications. Prof. Mahmood Ali Malik, Prof. Akbar Chaudhry, Prof. Javed Akram have all served as its Presidents while Prof. Shaharyar Sheikh has remained a great supporter for this cause chairing various Aspirin Update Sessions at conferences organized in collaboration with various professional Specialty organizations. I can never forget his love and affection for me.

Regional Collaboration and Editorial Training

Eastern Mediterranean Association of Medical Editors (EMAME) was founded at Cairo in 2003. I was one of the founder members. EMAME held its conferences at Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Shiraz in Iran and in Bahrain. It was in the Bahrain conference in 2008 that we suggested to start some training programme for Editors. Iranian colleagues were quick to pick up the idea and Dr. Behrooz Astaneh the then Editor of Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences stated a Masters programme at Shiraz Medical University in 2009. For me it took almost ten years to convince our colleagues in Pakistan the utility of such a course.

Pakistan Association of Medical Editors

PMJA was renamed as Pakistan Association of Medical Editors (PAME) in 2010 and we organized the 5th EMMJ Conference in December 2010 at CPSP Campus in Karachi. Prof. Zafarullah Chaudhry President of CPSP and the whole council helped us a lot to organize this meeting successfully providing Audiovisual, IT support besides accommodation for some of our foreign guests at a highly subsidized rate. Thirty-four foreign delegates from eighteen countries attended this conference which was one of the best EMAME conference ever organized with rich scientific programme. All this would not have been possible without the help, assistance and collaboration of CPSP. DUHS and AKU were the other collaborating institutions for this conference.

Certificate Courses in Medical Editing and Journalism

Eventually while attending the EMAME conference in Shiraz in Iran in 2015 we decided to start this programme under the patronage of Prof. Maj.Gen. M. Aslam VC UHS. When the curriculum was finalized, his tenure ended. We were lucky that after a gap of about two months Prof. Javed Akram was appointed as VC UHS. It was under his patronage that we started Certificate in Medical Editing (CME) and Certificate in Medical Journalism for Editors (CMJE). Present VC UHS Prof. Ahsan Waheed Rathore and Pro VC Prof. Nadia Naseem and her team, has contributed a lot for the continuation and success of this programme. So far six batches of CME and two batches of CMJE have qualified while Viva for the seventh CME Batch and Third CMJE Batch is scheduled in November 2025. It is due to this collaborative effort of UHS and PAME that a large number of medical journals published from Pakistan have improved their quality and earned recognition from PM&DC.

We had just three journals with Impact Factor and because of this training programme the number of IF journals from Pakistan in 2025 has increased to twelve. Prof. Javed Akram suggested the establishment of Dept. Of Medical Journalism at UHS and the present VC Prof. Ahsan Waheed Rathore has helped us realize this dream. This state the art Dept. of Medical Journalism was formally inaugurated on August 6th 2025. Prof. Nadia Naseem and her team again deserve to be commended in helping realize this dream. If all goes well, we intend to start Diploma in Medical Journalism next year followed by Masters in Medical Journalism in the days to come. A dedicated team of twenty-five distinguished researchers and medical editors from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran are helping in mentoring the candidates and also serve as Facilitators. It has been a very difficult journey and we did face lot of problems but they were all overcome with the vision and foresight of UHS administration, its present VC Prof Ahsan Waheed Rathore in particular.

Core Committee Members

Members of the Core Committee running and managing these CME courses at UHS Lahore include myself, Prof. Major Gen. M. Aslam, Prof. Jamshed Akhtar, Prof. Akhtar Sherin, Dr. Fatema Javad and Dr. Masood Jawaid. All decisions regarding curriculum are taken after discussions within the core committee.

Scholarships and Mentorship

After the death of my Mentor and founder Chief Editor of Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences Dr. Maqbool H. Jafary in 2015, I started training one Editors every year and also started a scholarship in his name. Eight Editors were trained and when we started CME programme at UHS this was also shifted to UHS and now first three position holders in both the courses are offered scholarship which are named after distinguished Editors. It is to honour them and recognize their contributions to promote the discipline of medical journalism in Pakistan. CME scholarships are named after late Dr. S. J. Zuberi, late Dr. Maqbool H. Jafary and late Prof. Tahir Saeed Haroon. CMJE scholarships are named after Prof. Maj. Gen. M. Aslam, Prof. Javed Akram, Prof. M Arshad Javed former VC Khyber Medical University and Prof. Ahmad Bader former Editor Journal of Ayub Medical College who is presently serving in Saudi Arabia. These scholarships are sponsored by Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences. The curriculum of these courses is a living document and we keep on improving it every year. This year humanizing medicine and how to write research grant proposals were added while from next year we plan to include how to conduct qualitative studies and use of Artificial Intelligence in medial journalism.

Future Challenges

Speaking about the future challenges Mr. Shaukat Ali Jawaid said we wish to identify and train local faculty so that UHS can run this programme independently, of course our cooperation and collaboration will continue. Some of the Alumni’s from earlier batches have been identified and they will be inducted as Co-Mentors and later appointed independent Mentors.

The above, he said, highlights the fact why these five distinguished medical personalities were selected for this honour and recognition. Medical Editors he said, must learn to say No when needed but respectfully, be honest with their profession, do not promote gift authorship and uphold professional ethics in publications. If we identify the “Brotherene-e-Yousuf, we can save ourselves from lot of embarrassment. One of the former British Prime Ministers Clement Attlee had also remarked that “Oh Lord Save me from my Friends, I know who my enemies are” which conveys a lot. Mr. Shaukat Jawaid suggested that we should not complain, do something and contribute to the development and progress of Pakistan. All my children became doctors and have done well in their respective disciplines. I did not have the resources so that they can become doctors. They were good students but the fee I paid in medical colleges was far less than I paid in their early school education It means someone paid for their education, hence now it is my turn to pay back that is why I pay my Income Tax honestly, he added.

Later Prof. Akbar Chaudhry, Prof. Shahryar Sheikh, Prof. Javed Akram, Prof. Maj. Gen. M. Aslam and Prof. Mahmood Ali Malik also briefly addressed the participant and thanked those present for gracing the occasion with their presence. Prof. Eice Mohammad was invited to conclude the session who took this opportunity to apologize from Prof. Shaharyar Sheikh if any of his actions in the past might have hurt him. He also called upon the members of the medical profession to serve the ailing humanity with dedication and devotion and practice ethical medicine. He along with Prof Javed Akram also resented his latest book “Bedside Case History Recording Book, Etiology an classification of common clinical diseases” to Mr. Shaukat Ali Jawaid.