‘Healthcare professionals must upgrade their knowledge to reduce fatal errors’
Instead of burdening patients with unnecessary diagnostic tests, screenings and combinations, healthcare professionals should enhance their medical skills and adopt evidence-based medicines and interventions to minimise the chances of medical errors and optimise the quality of healthcare, leading health experts said on Saturday.
“Medicine is a continuously evolving field and new interventions in the field of medicines and diagnostics are being introduced within a short span of time. Healthcare professionals are required to update their knowledge and learn about new skills and interventions to enhance patient care and reduce medical errors, which prove to be fatal for the patients,” said Prof Javed Akram, president of the Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine (PSIM).
He was delivering his presidential lecture at the inaugural ceremony of the 3rd Annual Conference of PSIM, which is underway at a hotel in Karachi. Leading healthcare professionals, heads of top hospitals, vice chancellors of public and private medical universities and internal medicine experts from across the country and abroad are attending the three-day moot.
The PSIM president, who is also the vice chancellor of the University of Health Sciences (UHS) Lahore, Prof Javed Akram, maintained that evidence-based medicine is a lifelong learning as medicine is changing with each passing day. “Healthcare professionals need to equip themselves with foraging or hunting tools for best diagnostic and treatment options and interventions to ease the sufferings of their patients.”
Free-of-charge clinics
Prof Akram said only nine per cent of the country’s population could afford the fees of top consultants of Pakistan, who on an average charge Rs5,000 or more as their consultation fee, but he added that they were now trying to arrange free-of-charge consultation services for needy and deserving patients at an ‘Apka Clinic’ network being established throughout the country.
“We have established the first Apka Clinic in Lahore where top consultants like myself and leading physicians of each specialty would do free clinics once a week for the needy and deserving patients. All the medical screenings, medicines and consultation would be free of charge for the needy and deserving patients,” Prof Akram added. He noted that these clinics were also being established in Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan and other cities of the country very soon for which several pbhilanthropists had also assured him of provision of land and required resources.
An eminent physician and chief guest at the conference, Prof Ejaz Vohra, also urged the young healthcare professionals to keep themselves updated with advancements in the field of medicine, saying that with new interventions and medicines, a lot more lives could be saved in countries like Pakistan.
Renowned gastroenterologist Prof Wasim Jaffri called for giving the Hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth to children, saying this simple intervention could help in eradicating Hepatitis B virus from Pakistan, which is still taking thousands of lives in Pakistan. He maintained that self-medication, unnecessary use of antibiotics, painkillers and steroids were damaging livers of people. He said that sometimes the damage caused by these drugs proved to be irreversible.
Eminent diabetologist Prof Dr Abdul Basit spoke in detail about the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, obesity and cardiac ailments, saying that without launching preventive measures and standardisation of care in the country, epidemics of diabetes, obesity, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases could not be controlled.
Prof Aziz-ur-Rehman from Lahore present his talk on microorganisms found in the digestive system of humans and said soon the use of ‘gut microbiota’ could change the medical landscape in the world. Senior Vice President PSIM Prof Aftab Mohsin, General Secretary PSIM Dr Somia Iqtadar, Managing Director Getz Pharma Khalid Mehmood, Prof Eice Muhammad, Prof Khalid Mahmud Khan and others also spoke.
