Medical Education Crisis in Pakistan

The day I first entered my university campus to pursue my degree in life science, I was part of a crowd who were sitting there unwillingly. A crowd of heartbroken students who didn’t make it to medical college and somehow managed to secure admission inside disciplines. All hopeless and furious, this brilliant crowd was starting a journey leading to nowhere.

The first lecture began with an unconventional introduction, where our English professor entered the classroom and asked us to put our hats down. Everyone was surprised as no one was wearing a hat, apparently at least. The command was followed by an explanation saying to put down the iron hats we were wearing for the last 2 years.

Medical Admission Crisis - An Iron Hat

The iron hat puts immense pressure on our nerves. The race was having thousands of brilliant minds in a lane to do everything to secure a position in a medical college. The issue was addressed the very first second we attended our first class. Pressure from parents, teachers and even from the inner us put our lives on a different track. It took a few of us to medical college and the rest of us started living in despair. Who was responsible for it all? A poorly structured education system that was capable of catering for a limited number of students.

The situation was pathetic and our futures were at risk. This was one limitation for the ones who didn’t make it to medical college. The ones who got into the mainstream were facing other challenges. Lack of appropriate medical education, limited resources and issues with policymaking serve as major challenges.

Growth of Digital Healthcare Platforms in Pakistan

However, the overall healthcare situation in Pakistan has quite changed and digital healthcare is the trend growing exponentially. Platforms like Marham.pk Healthwire.pk are working quite well practically on this side. Healthwire.pk is one such platform working on both sides and is on a mission to build a healthcare ecosystem in Pakistan.

They are covering some of the major areas including;
Doctors visits i.e., virtual and physical
Online pharmacy and laboratory services
Hospital management software
Maintenance of database regarding doctors, hospitals and diseases in Pakistan

Hopefully, in a few years, we are more likely to get benefits from the efforts put in by such organizations. Not only this, but this changes the face of the healthcare sector in Pakistan permanently.

How to Put this Crisis to an End?

1. The crisis of medical education is serious and needs to be addressed as soon as possible. This involves bringing massive change from the root level. Policymakers, medical boards and educational policymakers, all are collectively responsible for bringing this change that can go longer than we expect it to.

2. Moreover, there is a dire need to put in a collective effort to avoid more and more students getting affected by this. Parents and teachers both need to learn that medical isn’t the only option students can go with. There are a lot of other disciplines that can be chosen as a better career path.

3. Furthermore, being a medical doctor is just one way that can keep you relevant to this respectable profession and there are many other options you can go after. Medical technicians, researchers, medical data analysts are some other career options you can go with.

4. Talking from another dimension, there is a need to support medical research and the right medical education to facilitate and fully equip the medical professional with the right knowledge. This will enable them to deal with all kinds of situations so locals don’t have to move out for complex medical procedures and spend a lot of money.

5. Further, extensive policy making is required to make healthcare more efficient and to add more doctors per patient. When more doctors will be added to the system, this will ultimately improve the provision of healthcare facilities. Further, it will increase the number of available seats every year and more students will be added to the mainstream.

Final Thoughts

The medical field is considered an elite profession and every year thousands of students are pushed into this. But this is quite a crisis due to challenges at every step. However, only a bunch of students make it to medical school and the rest of others are made to move into other fields happily or unhappily. However, if the situation is rightly tackled here it will save a lot of students from suffering as well as it will add more doctors to our national assets.

Medical Education Crisis in Pakistan