An overview of my qualifications and activities
Health Informatics was the key
I entered my medical college, the Sind Medical College, Karachi, in the year 1988. There I had an opportunity to work with various welfare organisations working for the deprived communities of the patients, not to say that I left my academics behind. The aim was to engage in some positive and constructive activities, and help patients who could not afford to purchase medicines, or other supports in kind for medical treatment. I volunteered for almost all of these organisations some four in total, at one time or the other. This was my first exposure to the health system in my country before the start of the clinical postings in the hospitals. At the same time I found myself involved with the Pakistan Medical Association as well, the national representative organisation of the doctors. In socialisation with these people, I learned more about the health care delivery system.
I found ample time to observe and analyse the state of affairs in the health care provision system. I was interested in finding out the reason and cause of it defects. It was evident that the management was basically deficient in one of the two critical components. These I understood to be management skills supported by clinical skills, and/or vice-versa. One alone can not be the guarantee to success. By the time I graduated, I had decided to enter the field of Health Care Management. Following my clinical internship at the reputed Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, I looked for jobs in hospitals and health care organisations, and gained a good lot of experience in various management capacities at three hospitals. With an experience of these systems, some base line studies in management and public health, and program courses in health research and health systems' management, I identified correctly structured information systems as the vital key to the right management.
Having learned what I did, I started searching for appropriate courses locally and abroad. This being a new concept in health management, there were no courses available in Pakistan. So I had to look upto programs abroad. This was my reason to go to University of Warwick for post graduation. This is was one of the only two universities in Britain offering a postgraduate program in the field of my choice. The degree I got enrolled with was M.Sc. Health Information Sciences, for health services management, at the School of Post Graduate Medical Education. Here I had courses in clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, quality of care and quality audits, research techniques, surveying, basics of computer systems' requirements, and various management sciences. I was awarded my certificate of graduation in January 1999. Apart from the essential courses at the program, I had all opportunities to research and make new discoveries. Telemedicine was one of these. A newer version of an old forgotten technology.
And finally Telemedicine .....
I made my term assignment, Telemedicine: Fact or Furore, and only learned more about this fascinating and potentially revolutionary technology for provision of health care. Then I wrote my M.Sc. dissertation, again on telemedicine, with London Clinic, London. The London Clinic is a large, down-town London hospital, with a large number of in-patient and out-patient services. The dissertation was titled
"EVALUATION
AND STANDARDISATION IN TELEMEDICINE
THE LONDON CLINIC: A CASE STUDY"
It addressed the issues at large and solutions to some of them. Those in evaluation were health outcome evaluation, cost benefit evaluation, social acceptance, and observations in The London Clinic. The issues of standardisation included standard nomenclature of network architecture and topology, numerology of cases, data collection formats, standard operating procedures and local operating procedures, the role of ISO in standardisation of telemedical services, and observations made at The London Clinic. In addition to the issues addressed by virtue of title, the additional ones were change management, the organisation's situation analysis, and observation at The London Clinic. Further to these, with my knowledge and background of management (and some acquired by lengthy readings), I prepared for them, a set of "Local Operating Procedures" for data reception and report writing, and a "Marketing Strategy" for marketing their telemedical services in Middle East.
These days , about a year later, I am working for an academic institution, at a respectable faculty position. My job description includes facilitation of workshops on developing academic skills. This is helping me tremendously to improve my teaching / training and presentation capabilities. I am also actively involved at a project on distance medical education with Internet as the medium of communication.
I wish to take up telemedicine in future, where I will make use of all of the courses studied at the program, as well as my basic qualification that is in medicine, and the experiences gained over these years in hospital administration and academia.
Now... I am at the same time managing another Website as well, named the Medi-tech. It is a site, like a one window shopping palace, of links and overviews on the health system of Pakistan, open to all comments, critiques and contributions. Do give me yours as well, if you wish so ! It talks all about the existing health care systems, the techniques and technologies as they are today, the data where ever available, the problems in the health care system, solutions suggested to them, and the allied medical fields. It is not close to any school of thought in medicine and health. In pertinence to the situation and environmental requirements, it will often emphasise more upon the latest technologies including Telemedicine, and the Y2K problem in the ROM Chips of the health care equipment. I myself believed it to be an unimportant issue for the health care system of Pakistan, until I realised the significance and the extensive use of ROM Chips in the medical equipment like Computer Assisted Tomoprahic Scan (CATS) machines, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipments, UltraSonographers, and more. If you have any questions about the same, please do not hesitate to ask, or put your suggestions if you have any.
Anything that follows in my life is the future. How do I see it? You have to go to the future yourself :)