‘Research integral part of medical education’

KARACHI – The medical colleges of the country need to incorporate research as an integral part of curriculum, Dr Zarrin S Siddiqui said on Tuesday.
Dr Siddiqui is an assistant professor in medical education, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences University of Western Australia.
In her lecture – ‘Aligning research with training development of researchers’ at the Dow Medical College campus of the Dow University of Health Sciences, she said research is a good source of information and learning.
With particular reference to medical education, she said, “Research plays a pivotal role in medical profession. The inspiration for most physicians and researchers are the unanswered medical questions, eventually improving patient care.” The expert in medical education said that traditionally, medical doctors have been either pure clinicians or primarily researchers and there is a need for multi-tasking of physicians too. “Emphasis has to be made in developing countries like ours to integrate research within the medical community,” she added.
She was of the view that research culture is welcomed in a handful of universities mainly influenced by their own faculty who are either true medical scientists or do research to survive in the list of vast growing medical colleges. “As a future incentive and to address the needs of our people, we must be able to train pragmatic health policy makers on basis of evidence provided by research,” she added. Dr Siddiqui said that encouraging young physicians to participate in research will give the much-needed boost to the local medical field. Answering to queries that followed her presentation, she said factors including guidance from research-oriented mentors, funding and training play a crucial role in conducting high quality research.