In the year 1966, legendary Physicians of Sudan Dr. Abdel
Halim Mohamed, Dr. Daoud Mustafa, Dr. Mohydeen Mahdy, Dr. Abdel Razak
AlMubarak, Dr. Mohamed Hassan Abubakr, Dr. Abdel Monem Wasfi and Dr. Mohamed
Hassan Gabir formed the Sudan Association of Physicians (SAP). The purpose of
the association was to bring the Physicians together both socially and
professionally. This association is now 50 years old and the Golden Jubilee was
celebrated at the
29th Conference of SAP during 26-29 February’16 at
Friendship Hall, Khartoum. In these 50 years there have been 24 Presidents
elected in SAP and the present President Dr.Nawal A.Y.Elkurdofani is the first
lady head of SAP. At the opening of the conference she mentioned that the theme
was ‘Screening and Prevention towards Better Health’. Her vision is to hit on
this often overlooked or by-passed important area of medicine. At the
inauguration all the past Presidents of SAP, ten of them, were felicitated.
The immediate previous SAP President Prof. Siddig Ibrahim
Khalil presented ‘Medicines and Physicians of the Sudan during 20th
Century’. In his presentation Prof. Siddig shared from the archives that the
first physician was Dr. J .B. Christopherson and Dr. Hassan Zaki (1902), spoke
of the smallpox epidemic in 2003 and later the main diseases were malaria and
dysentery. The medicines available were tincture belladonna and carbolic acid.
The first graduates in medicines in Khartoum were in 1928, the year Fleming
discovered Penicillin, but the drug was available only in 1942.
The visiting doctor who stole the limelight at the
conference was Prof. Parveen Kumar, famous co-author of Kumar and Clark’s
Clinical Medicine, now in its eighth edition. She has held many posts in
medicine and medical education, including chairing the Medicines Commission UK
and serving as president of the British Medical Association in 2006 and of the
Royal Society of Medicine in 2010-12. Many doctors in Sudan were of the
impression that Parveen Kumar was a man and were surprised to find that she was
an elegant lady of Indian origin. Prof. Kumar spoke on ‘Diagnosis and
management of coeliac diseases’; ‘Irritable Bowel Syndrome’ and ‘Career in
Medical Education’.
There were many other speakers both from abroad and Sudan
who spoke on various subjects like Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Neurology,
Cardiology, Nephrology, Diabetology, Chest diseases, tropical medicine,
infectious diseases, Rheumatology, Emergency medicine, Intensive Care,
Hypertension, Dyslipidemia and Medical Education. There were more than 500
doctors both juniors and consultants who attended the 4 days conference.
There was a corner where about
ten 5th year medical students made interesting poster presentations of their
own research which had many revelations. The writer thought these bright future
doctors should have been given more prominence.
No comments:
Post a Comment