50 doctors to leave for training in Ireland

Islamabad: The College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan has finally selected 50 young doctors who are going to leave for Ireland for two-year training under a Scholarship Exchange Programme between Health Services Executive Ireland and CPSP.

This is the fifth batch of postgraduate trainees being sent to Ireland under the scholarship programme between CPSP and HSE/Royal College of Ireland.  The PG trainees leaving for Ireland would get training in as many as eight specialties including General Medicine, General Surgery, Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology and Anaesthesia.

It is important that as many as 290 postgraduate trainees registered with the CPSP have already completed training in seven specialties in Ireland under the Scholarship Exchange Programme while as many as 75 young doctors are on training in Ireland.

In Ireland, Pakistani PG trainees are registered with Irish Medical Council and are getting a stipend equivalent to that of local trainees of Ireland and it amounts to over 3000 Euros.

The World Health Organization has already termed this scheme as the best scheme between the developing countries and it is being termed as ‘brain gain’ versus brain drain as under the exchange programme, hundred percent trainees returned to Pakistan after two years training under strict CPSP Policies and rules.

Councillor and Regional Director of CPSP at Regional Centre, Islamabad Professor Muhammad Shoaib Shafi expressed this while talking to ‘The News’ on Saturday.

He added that the PG trainees being sent to Ireland would be able to learn modern methods of practice in advance developing countries in all the eight specialties. This type of cooperation between CPSP and Ireland is authorized for only CPSP PG trainees and does not involve any University program of MS, M.D or M. Phil, he said.

It is worth mentioning that the first batch of doctors comprising 93 PG trainees went to Ireland under the scholarship programme in July 2013.

Royal College of Surgeons and Health Services Executive Ireland approved extension in its HSE-CPSP scholarship program in 2015 that opened more opportunities for PG trainees registered with the CPSP.  In a briefing given to PG trainees before leaving for Ireland, senior level CPSP office bearers asked the young doctors to promote their culture and norms in the host country and help improving image of Pakistan in Ireland, said Professor Shoaib.