1,500 students receive degrees at eighth convocation of DUHS

Fifteen hundred students of the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) were awarded PhD, MBBS, BDS and PharmD degrees at the eighth annual convocation of the educational institution at its Ojha campus on Wednesday.

Twenty-five students were also awarded gold medals for their extraordinary academic achievements during their courses in various disciplines of medical sciences, while 29 bagged silver medals and 30 more were awarded bronze medals.

Addressing the convocation, Sindh Health Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro called upon the graduating students to conduct research in various disciplines of the medical sciences along with providing medical facilities to ailing humanity, similar to the hospitals and medical universities of the developed world.

Mandhro said the government was establishing new health facilities, medical universities and teaching hospitals in the province to provide better health facilities to the masses, urging the graduates to step forward to help ailing humanity have proper health facilities closest to their residences.

The minister said that for the first time in the history of the province, pre-entry admission test for getting admissions in medical colleges were being conducted simultaneously, adding that the credit for the achievement went to DUHS Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Saeed Quraishy, who was the chairman of the admission committee.

“The Sindh government believes in merit, and all the admissions to the MBBS and BDS programmes would be held in a transparent manner through the admission test to be held simultaneously in the entire province.”

Dr Mandhro said doctors were a valuable asset of the country, adding that the provincial administration spent a large amount of money on their education and training. “It is now the responsibility of the doctors and physicians to repay the country by serving the people who are in distress and suffering from diseases.” Later, the provincial health minister distributed degrees, shields and gold, silver and bronze medals among the graduating students of the heath university.

In his welcome address, Dr Quraishy had said that although he had taken over as the vice-chancellor of the university only recently, he was striving hard to improve the teaching and academic facilities at the educational institution, for which he had complete support of the syndicate and faculty of the DUHS.

“In order to provide quality health services, provision of quality health education to students is immensely important, and all efforts are being made to improve the standard of medical education at the university and its affiliated institutions.”