KIPS Student Council

" As a young novice in philosophy, the solution to eliminating the mind body dualism, the remedy to close the biases incurred by monetary considerations , I used to remove the money factor and then decide what my heart truly desires. The finalists were medicine and psychiatry. To be honest, the last thought was that although medicine has all the virtues of an amazing speciality but for me the psychiatry had a little extra enigma.
I was not very strong individual as an adolescence. I would say, I had lot of flexibility and an primitive ability to think neutrally without interference of emotions. I felt I had minimum biases against others of any sort and am still amaze at how easily we let the rationality go out the window in face of an emotional crises. So while going to a specific rotation , I could feel literally by imagining day and night how it be to lead a life of that specific specialty. Again, I did not let the effect of teachers influence my choice of career as i felt that was a modifiable variable.

The experience at KEMU was being nostalgic, amazing.
The flaws are inherently in the education system and I feel we are the survivors. As we did manage to go and face whatever came our way. The problems were very basic and they are the ones which are being now addressed efficiently by the department of medical education. The emphasis on concepts rather than tons of knowledge, improved testing, modules etc. will hopefully make things clearer.
It is easy to look back and criticize. Just to be objective, I had shortcomings too. The faults were sometimes getting advice from wrong sources and getting stuck to them. The seniors I looked up to were not the most academic rather the ones with more balanced approach to life. I did sometimes wasted time on trivial things. We always have a choice to take a road at each point of our lives. That choice in turn becomes our destiny. My one advice would be to live life mindfully rather than passing by thoughtlessly. It simply means to reflect, to think about one's life. To self evaluate each decision and action and the guiding principle should be the rational argument.

I took interest in swimming and bodybuilding. I contested twice at a bodybuilding competition at KEMU. I was also the swimming captain and color holder and represented KEMU at the university level. My friend Dr Shoaib Bajwa was the best athlete of the college.
I would often be found reading irrelevant material before the test date, as I simply tried not to cram anything before paper. Be careful with that it has consequences. The principle is try to find out one's unique method of working efficiently.
Generally the students go through different stages while in a medical college. A role of a good student mentor system cannot be over emphasized.We have recently started to welcome the new students by an orientation week and at the same time introduce our psychological support system for the young minds. It has been reasonably effective. In these times, everyone desires to get the maximum output of their intelligence. So a need is there , we try to vacuum this bridge.

One way forward is to strengthen our medical education department. That has the capacity to overcome the changes needed to create an efficient learning environment. Aga Khan University has created a good example by establishing a dynamic medical education department. We are trying to grow on similar lines.

In our last lecture of surgery, Prof T A Shah said in closing remarks that FCPS is the most difficult out of USMLE , PLAB , and others etc. Probably at that time the examinations were not fully structured and examiner biases was there. Things took 180 degree turn. Now even FCPS is fully structured , so examiners have virtually no power to influence a candidate. There were some confusions as usual while ending my MBBS. I thought about USMLE, as everyone was doing in those days. But when I would question the real reason behind my pursuing for it, I never had a strong argument. I started house job at Dr Faisal Masud's unit at Services. It was an excellent experience. Next i chose to go to psychiatry to explore my inclinations towards it. It took me sometime to evaluate the depth and vastness of psychiatry. I found its unique relation with both psychology, neurology, medicine and philosophy.
Making the money variable neutral, I would contemplate that the burden of psychiatric illnesses are staggering. I felt I had the gene for it. I never felt at work. I remember first few days doing house job at a psychiatry department. I used to take extensive histories on the day of a patients admission once it were about 14. It just made me more excited as I felt I have the first hand narration of the illness and I could try to find solutions. At that time there used to be only one house officer seat in the psychiatry department of Services Hospital. That made me get tremendous attention and good learning experience. It was by the end of the rotation, I felt I would like to continue the same.

So any choice could be right or wrong. It depends upon you. The questions you ask will shape your decision. My advice is follow no advice than yourselves. Do ask yourself though what need to be asked. And if you don't know how to explore your mind, psychiatry department can help you with that. As awareness of mind is what makes us primarily - human. "

( Dr. Usman Amin Hotiana is the graduate of batch 2003 . He received his post-graduation training in psychiatry from Services Institute of Medical Sciences . He is currently working as Assistant Professor of psychiatry in King Edward Medical University / Mayo Hospital Lahore )

“Who dekho langra aaraha he……”
“Chala jata nai iss se school parhnay aajata he…”
“Jo tunday hotay hain un men aik EXTRA rag hoti he….”
These are some of the sentences that I used to listen growing up. These sentences made me cry every time, but I didn’t cry in front of everyone. Not even in front of my parents. I used to sit alone somewhere and cry a lot. This hurt my mother the most but she never showed it to anybody.
I am a patient of congenital muscular dystrophy. My sister and I suffer from this.
“Time will come when this kid will have to use wheel chair to move”
These words, that my doctor said to my parents, still haunt me. I was just a kid back then and I didn’t even know their meaning. I went to school like everyone else did and I topped in every class despite my unusual condition. Upto class 7, I used to walk on my feet.Then that time came when I couldn’t walk anymore. But I kept going. I ranked top positions in classes 8 and 10.

One of my old teachers gave me a book. It was an autobiography of Dr. Khalid Jameel. He became doctor on wheel chair after a horrible accident that broke his spine .This gave me hope. If he could become a doctor on wheel chair, why can’t I? So I kept going. King Edward Medical University became my obsession when I came to Lahore to start FSc. and I saw the historic domes of Patiala block. I took its pictires. That day I said to my parents,

“One day I will come here and make you proud inshaAllah!”

And that day really came. Seeing my name in the King Edward Medical University merit list was one of the happiest moments of my life. That night, I couldn’t sleep at all. I was a Kemcolian! But all my hopes went sour when I was rejected because of the rule of medical study that one who is not mentally/physically fit cannot get admission. I felt like I had come to a dead end. Fortunately for me, this issue caught media’s attention because I had got admission on Open Merit in KEMU and not on special seat. A month later,the Punjab Government intervened and they requested the health department to relax the rules for me. The government also provided funds to overcome any infrastructural hindrances.

The status that I have now, couldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the help of the people around me ; my parents, my teachers and my friends. I don’t have any words to show my gratitude to all these people. My father, seeing the thirst of learning in me, left his business to take care of me. My friends, whether in school, in college or in KE, sacrificed a lot to take care of me. It will take countless words describing all of their efforts. I just want to say hats off to all of them for helping me achieve my goals for it wouldn’t be possible without them.

Life in KEMU was not easy. My consultants warned me not to opt medical profession because, they said that I needed the physical and mental relaxation for managing my medical condition and the burden of medical studies was doing quite the opposite. But studying in KEMU was my greatest obsession at that time. In start, I got mix response from the people. Even some of my closest relatives said that it was quite impossible for me to study here. Reason? Everyone can understand! But my parents didn’t leave my side. My father quit all of his business and came to live with me in Lahore. He lived with me in hostel all the time upto my graduation. He took care of me in every aspect of my life.. I have four sisters . My mom lived alone in home with them all this period.

I made some very good friends here in KEMU. They made me feel like a normal person. They celebrated their every happiness with me. They took care of me like I was their brother. They gave me a lot of support in every aspect of my life, especially in my studies and ward rotations. In the end, I cleared the most toughest medical exams like a walk in the park.

My teachers, especially professors from the clinical side encouraged me a lot. I took this as a golden opportunity and cleared all of the exams with my original batch (2008-13).

The day I graduated was was one of the proudest moments of my life. It was definitely a “A Dream Come True” and “The Impossible Turned Into Possible” like moment for me. It’s because of blessings of ALLAH and great support of people around me especially my parents, my teachers and my friends.
One of the event that I cannot forget all my life is our class trip to Azad Kashmir in final year. My friends persuaded me to go as well. I couldn’t travel on usual buses and it was tough for someone like me to travel all the way to Azad Kashmir but my friends made it all possible. Of course I couldn’t climb the tough paths, but I enjoyed nevertheless.

I did my house job in Mayo Hospital Lahore. Now I am working as a demonstrator in department of Biochemistry in KEMU. I plan to do post-graduation in any basic sciences subject.

After reading this, all of you must be thinking that I am some kind of angel or superhero who didn’t feel pain, never lost hope in his life, never lost anything. But this is not true. There came some moments in my life when I wished I were never even born. I did lose hope many times in my life. In my childhood, my father took me to all the good doctors and even ‘hakeems’ that he knew of. I also went to many ‘peer sahabs’. In the end when I met Dr. Khalid Jameel, he told my father to get things straight.

“There is no cure for this disease at least for now”, he said, “all you can do is make his life simple and comfortable, help him in whatever he wants to do, make him stand on his own feet so he can take care of himself in every aspect of his life because it is very important for a person like him to be independent.

Then he told me to think of my disability like a spot on a white paper. “In our society people notice these spots not the whole white paper. But if you make a beautiful flower around this spot, people will see that flower and then nobody will notice that awful spot” . This message really hit me hard. So, I made peace with my condition. This was a very important thing in my life.

Once a great man said to me “people use two legs to move, think of your wheel chair like a cool four wheeler to move around”. Of course it was hilarious, describing a wheel chair as ‘cool’ but it worked. I found a purpose to move forward in my life and worked hard to get it. Plus I had a great support from my friends who helped me a lot to tackle all the despair and the hopelessness in my life.

Today when I sit alone and see all of the things that I have achieved, I couldn’t understand what possible motivation made it all possible. I mean I could quit at any point, I had a genuine reason for that but there was some energy, some power or something that possessed all of my thoughts. And this thing kept me going forward.I couldn’t figure out still what this power was but I guess it was some kind of ALLAH’s blessing which didn’t let me lose hope.

In the end I want to give a message to my juniors, never lose hope in your life. NEVER! Whatever path you have opted for yourself, focus all of your energy towards it and make flowers around your awful weak points.

(Dr.Muhammad Tayyab is graduate of batch 2008-13 . He is a patient of congenital muscular dystrophy . Going against all the odds , he got admission in KEMU on open merit and is currently working as a demonstrator in the department of Biochemistry . He is source of inspiration for many such medical students who give up their dreams due to their any physical inability. )

In the end , life is just memories – some lived , some missed , some enjoyed and some grieved . You live the memories long after they had left and it never feels that you are away from them because in the end you are your own memories.
I still remember that splendid day of 1953 when I entered the hallways of King Edward Medical College . I had just gone in with a merit number of 72 out of 80 students . All my time in KE is the gold frame of my life .
I still remember attending all the social events there . I excelled in photography club and wrestling in college . Although I was of slender physique yet I didn’t give up this sport. I still cherish that day when I was taken on the shoulders of other students in Patiala lecture theatre 2, with the chants of ‘ Anis Pehelwan’ . I can clearly remember the moment when Fatima Jinnah came to KE as the chief guest of sports week . She was looking subtle and elegant sitting under the tent .
As for studies , I was never good at them, though I never got a supply . I still remember that physiology practical where I was unable to name the ten layers of retina but still I got through somehow.
What I see different in todays Kemcolians is the elegant sense of dressing . In my times ,the Principal was Colonel Ilahi Baksh who always told us that every kemcolian through his gestures and clothing should stand out where ever he goes . He made us wear well pressed shirts with pants having razor sharped crease . He made sure that a kemcolian gets recognized wherever he goes, with his decent attitude and etiquettes .
My only advice to current undergraduates and recent graduates is to take life a little lightly . Life had always been fast – it’s actually you who slow it down and relish every single moment . Have an evening walk , chat with your friends , go out more often and never miss a show of cinema even on the eve of the paper – at least it worked for me to get rid of all the tension in medical school .
Life after graduation was graceful . KE had given us a repute that was actually making way for us to a better future . Kemcolians got honoured wherever they went . I did my housejob in ENT and got a diploma in it too , worked for sometime in Saudia Arabia . After coming back I did diploma in public health and got promoted to MS of various hospitals finally retiring as the MS of Jinnah Hospital Lahore in 1996. A life well spent !

I still visit KE sometimes where all that nostalgia with memories come again . I miss those Bunyan trees in cricket ground where we used to sit and chat ! In the end , life indeed is just memories – make sure these are good !

(Dr. Anis Ahmad is the graduate of class 1958 . He was ENT specialist retiring as MS Jinnah Hospital Lahore in 1996 . His sister , Shehnaz Khan , is also a kemcolian .His son , Dr. Yawar Anis is also a kemcolian working currently as Professor of orthopedics in Fatima Jinnah Hospital Lahore . His two grandsons , Bakht Yawar and Ali Yawar are also in King Edward Medical University, doing MBBS )

A class apart
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We often hear about doctors as some socially isolated persons who would live and die in the bounded walls of medicine and surgery but many of us are unaware of the name , “ Dr. Ayub Ommaya”. He lived many dreams within a single lifetime proving that famous lines , “ you live once , but if you do it right once is enough .” He was a national swimmer of Pakistan , a debating legend , an opera singer , a boxer , an actor in Hollywood and last but not the least a neurosurgeon who had contributed to traumatic injuries and selective chemotherapy of brain .
He was a profound researcher of human consciousness and emotions that he derived from the sufist aspect of his father combined with the approach by his catholic mother . He graduated from King Edward Medical University in 1953 . Dr . Riaz Haider ( a renowned cardiac surgeon in US ) and his friend reminisces their old times at university by telling that Dr. Ommaya was a kind of person who would be good at anything he decides to do . He used to be a great swimmer and won national championships , was a great debator and played piano in the best of its essence . He was exceptional in studies and other academic qualities .
Dr Haider told another story that Ommaya had recounted to him. When he was in his second year at King Edward in Lahore, he read an article in Reader’s Digest about a Canadian neurosurgeon by the name of Dr Penfield from Montreal. So inspired was he by what he had read that he decided that day to become a neurosurgeon. He also wrote to Dr Penfield, asking him to accept him as a student. The Canadian surgeon wrote back suggesting that Ommaya should instead go to London where he should study under one of Penfield’s old students, Dr Pennybecker, which is exactly what Ommaya did by winning a Rhode scholarship to Oxford university. He studied neurophysiology and emotions there and graduated with laurels in 1956 . Like always , there would be some extra- curricular he excelled at and this time it was boxing in Oxford University . He was given the fellowship by the royal college of surgeons in 1960 . He further mastered in clinical biology at oxford university and was appointed as great Hunter’s professor at Royal College of Surgeons .
He came back to Pakistan and he was dealt with the same approach as with the every other intellectual. He wasn’t allowed to be a full professor according to old laws and was just appointed as an assistant professor in surgery with lesser opportunity to promotion and that status was actually nothing as compared to his repute as Hunter’s professor .
In 1961 , he immigrated to United States and became its citizen one year later . That was the time of all his golden achievements:

- Before the discovery and invention of Ommaya reservoir , it was impossible to do the chemotherapy of brain effectively . This oval sub-cutaneous reservoir is used to deal with the brain tumors . Every neurosurgeon trained today knows about this Ommaya reservoir as great leap of humanity .

- His life long research on traumatic injuries of brain in a road accident led to his work on centripetal theory of traumatic brain injury in the United Stated transportation department . Today if you’re travelling safe in a car or treated after an accident ; well ! thanks goes to the research work of this gentleman .

- Dr. Ommaya was well known for his surgical skill and in 1977 he completed a difficult removal of a spinal Arterio-Venous Malformation (AVM) which received attention in the lay press. During the 18-hour operation the patient was placed in total body hypothermia and total circulatory arrest for 45 minutes. The hypothermia was needed to slow metabolism and protect the brain and organs from reduced oxygen supply while Dr. Ommaya surgically embolized and removed an AVM which was located near the medulla. This great operation was put in the Readers Digest under the title , “ 45 minutes into death.” He was appointed as the Chief of Neurosurgery at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Health. He also was a clinical professor at George Washington University.

- He acted in the Hollywood film , “ Lorenzo’s oil “ that was released in 1992.

- He was awarded Sitara – e – Imtiaz in 1982 by then president of Pakistan.

Known as the "singing neurosurgeon," Dr. Ommaya was a trained opera tenor who often sang before and after surgery, to the delight of patients and their families and his hospital colleagues.

In 1997, Dr. Ommaya was called as a defense expert witness in the highly publicized trial of Louise Woodward, a British au pair accused of killing an 8-month-old baby in her care. He maintained that the child, Matthew Eappen, could not have been killed by violent shaking, as prosecutors claimed.
Sitting in the witness stand of a Cambridge, Mass., courtroom, he bounced a wad of Silly Putty on the floor to illustrate the damage that could be caused by impact. "The demonstration elicited a burst of laughter from jurors and observers -- a rarity in a trial that has featured emotionally wrenching testimony from the baby's parents and others," the Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.) reported at the time. Dr. Ommaya retired in 2001 and returned to Pakistan .

Let’s call this the irony of nature or so ; he fought with Alzheimer’s disease during the last years of his life and died on 11th of july ,2008 in Islamabad .

Everyone is proud of their alma matter but there are very few people to whom alma matter is proud of – Dr. Ommaya was one of them !

(This is a post in the series of the old kemcolians who have changed the world for the better)

Daily Express News Story

"Most teachers waste their time by asking questions
that are intended to discover what a pupil does not
know, whereas the true art of questioning is to
discover what the pupil does know or is capable of
knowing." -Albert Einstein

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