Prof. akhtar ahmed – a memoir of love, respect, admiration, and...
Pakistan Journal of
Neurological Sciences (PJNS)
Prof. akhtar ahmed - a memoir of love, respect, admiration, and...
Ismail A. Khatri 0
0 King Saud bin Abdulaziz University of Health Sciences in Riyadh.
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Article 2
PROF. AKHTAR AHMED – A MEMOIR OF LOVE, RESPECT,
ADMIRATION, AND...
Ismail A. Khatri, MD
Consultant neurologist at King Abdulaziz Medical City, National Guard Health Affairs, Riyadh, Associate professor of neurologyat
King Saud bin Abdulaziz University of Health Sciences in Riyadh.
Correspondence to:
Date of submission: November 20, 2014, Date of revision: December 1, 2014, Date of acceptance: December 5, 2014
Prof. Akhtar Ahmed – a majzoob, how can it be. What an
unusual analogy! I was kind of surprised when I heard
this from one of my revered teachers Prof. Iftekhar
Ahmed who happen to be one of the students of Prof.
Akhtar Ahmed like me. However, when he explained this
analogy it made complete sense. He explained that a
majzoob throws stones on the salik and treats the salik
harshly until he is confident that the salik can go through
and endure the hardships on the path. Once satisfied,
the majzoob opens up for the salik and the knowledge
and love starts to flow then. Generally considered a stern
and tough teacher, Prof. Akhtar Ahmed was full of
knowledge and love for those who know him well.
I am no one to write this memoir, however, I am thankful
to Dr. Abdul Malik who invited me to write this. A lot of
this memoir is based on old memories and can have
recall bias but this is not fantasy, or dreams. All of what
follows is true but may not be exact in dates and details.
Before I go on describing my love and love relationship
with Prof. Akhtar Ahmed, I must admit that except for a
month of neurology rotation in 4th year of medical
school, I was never his formal trainee, not a house
officer, nor a postgraduate trainee, yet I feel like a
perpetual student and admirer of him.
Brief Biography
I have not known a lot of this information until recently.
I have obtained this from a presentation recently made
at the condolence meeting held at Dow University, and a
presentation given by Dr. Arsalan Ahmad in 1st
Neurology Research Day at Shifa International Hospital. Born
in 1935 in Hyderabad Deccan, he graduated with
honors from Dow Medical College, Karachi in 1957
ranking first and receiving Mistri Gold Medal. He
became member of Royal College of Physicians of
Edinburgh in 1962 and was awarded fellowship of Royal
College in 1978. He received fellowship for study of
mental retardation in the USA in 1965. He received a
WHO fellowship in neurology in 1979. After practicing in
Navy Hospital, Karachi in 1962 and 1963, he became
incharge of Mental Retardation Project at Jinnah
Postgraduate Medical Center from 1964 to 1969. He
became assistant professor and founded the
department of neurology at Dow Medical College in 1970,
where he stayed till his retirement in 1997. He became
associate professor in1979,and professor in 1985. He
was also the vice principal of Dow Medical College
between 1986 and 1988 and visiting professor at Aga
Khan University. After his retirement from Dow Medical
College, he was also affiliated with Baqai University for
couple of years. He was awarded honorary fellowship by
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan and was
member of several national and international
organizations related to neurology. His research interests
included subacutesclerosingpancephalitis (SSPE) and
mosquito born neurological pathogens. He worked
extensively with Japanese researchers on the arthropod
borne encephalitides and SSPE in Karachi. He also
worked on neurometabolic errors causing mental
retardation. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award
for his services to Neurology by the division of neurology
of Shifa International Hospital in September 2007 and
Professional Excellence Award in March 2013 by Dow
University of Health Sciences.
My First Encounter
As you are entering into the clinical years of medical
school training, you fantasize about great clinicians. The
reputation of Prof. Akhtar Ahmed as a great clinician was
well acknowledged, but came with the scare of stern and
tough attitude. He used to collect the whole clinical
group in his office and give a lecture on the first day,
which he called a khutba. He asked the group to
prepare a summary of his khutba to be presented in next
grand rounds which used to take place on Tuesday. I
don’t remember if anyone else from our group did it or
not, but I did and I still have a copy of my summary after
21 years, which I presented in the Tuesday grand round
and he was very impressed by the content as well as
English. He was very picky on the mistakes made by his
RMOs and trainees in English. He did not anticipate a
well versed summary from a young medical student who
was in his first week of rotation with him. This probably
paved the wave for future long term relationship. I thank
my nieces Nuvera and Muneeza for helping me find this
summar (...truncated)