APPNA Summer Journal 2012

APPNA JOURNALVolume 14 • Number 1 • Summer 2012

Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America

A BIANNUAL publication of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-Descent of North America

Sa’adat Hasan MantoBirth Centenary

1912-2012

APPNA JOURNALA BIANNUAL publication of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-Descent of North America

Volume 14 • Number 1Summer 2012

APPNA JOURNAL 3 SUMMER 2012

We are celebrating, through the pages of this magazine, the birth centenary of Sa’adat Hasan Manto, the legendary Urdu short story writer. He died at a young age of 43, heart broken and per-secuted by the society he lived in. It is, however, heartening to see him resur-

rected in this age of intolerance. Manto was brilliant, bold and enig-matic and perhaps way ahead of his time. Manto did not take the events surrounding the partition of India kindly. He never reconciled with the fact that millions of human beings lost their lives to brazen fanaticism. In 1948, he left Bombay (Mumbai), the town he grew up in, and feeling betrayed by his friends migrated to Lahore. His new homeland was far from welcoming. He was tried and persecuted by the establishment and the right wing press for obscenity and debauchery.

While the dwellers of the new nation celebrated its independence from Hindu dominance, Manto’s short stories such as “Toba Tek Singh” and “Siyah Hashiye” questioned the nature of our national identity. His writings pointed towards deep humanistic values that makes us similar rather than separate from each other and which is seen across religious and ethnic divide. While Sa’adat Hasan Manto underwent multiple trials by the establishment and right wing dema-gogues, his fall out with Progressive Writers Association and its lead-ership caused him intense pain and a sense of isolation. Post parti-tion, the aims and objectives of the movement and Manto’s liberal-ism became incompatible and in 1949 at PWA’s All-Pakistan confer-ence, Manto was boycotted by the organization. “Get rid of the opium of art for art’s sake. Our movement is based on owning, understanding and respecting the suffering of the masses”, wrote Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, the spokesman of the PWA, in an open let-ter to Manto.

Sixty-five years after the creation of Pakistan, we are still trying to solve the question of national identity and find direction. Suppression of thought, expression and assembly has produced

APPNA JOURNAL 3

ED ITOR IAL

An Essayist, A Doctor And Our National Identity

Tanveer Imam, MDPublication Committee

Chair

national leaders and institutions who are obscurantist, religious big-ots and autocratic. The citizens of that great land have sustained loss of life and property. General insecurity prevails forcing doctors, engineers and professionals to leave the country. Dr. Aftab Qureshi, Professor of Neurosurgery at Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences is a recent victim of the prevailing lawlessness. He was abducted, held for ransom and finally executed by his captives who, not so unexpectedly, are at large.

Dr. Aftab Qureshi’s abduction and murder has generated severe anxi-ety and outrage among the physician community of Pakistan. The Dean of Post Graduate Medical Institute, Prof. Tariq Salahuddin, in an open letter to The President, Prime Minister and Chief Justice of Pakistan has asked how the government and state machinery expects doctors to function in an environment of insecurity and escalating violence against common citizens? How does the government plan to stop the brain drain of professionals when it eyes the situation in complete silence and with indifference? The letter demands answers and actions to apprehend the culprits and assurance of security for doctors and other citizens.

Dr. Aftab Qureshi is not the first doctor who has been mercilessly slayed by “unknown assailants” in Pakistan. Hundreds of doctors have lost their lives becoming victim of religious or ethnic bigotry and of general lawlessness. Multiple doctors in the academia and pri-vate sector have lost their lives and loved ones to various mafias. The violence seems unabated and the law enforcement rudimentary, except for the ruling elites for whose protection the majority of forces are deployed. What would become of our nation? We lost over a million lives creating Pakistan, on whose name are the inno-cent citizens dying today? Is there another Sa’adat Hassan Manto, among us, who can probe our conscience? Are there any conscien-tious writers, journalists and poets who can come together to lead the society against tyranny? Where are the students, doctors, lawyers who can raise their voices against injustice? Where are we all? Why is there a deafening silence? Who is there to wake the nation from its deep slumber?


APPNA JOURNAL PUBLISHERThe Association of Physicians of PakistaniDescent of North America

Executive Committee 2011President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Saima Zafar, MDPresident-Elect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Javed Suleman, MDImmediate Past President . . . . . . . . . Manzoor Tariq, MDSecretary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Asif Rehman, MDTreasurer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Farid Qazi, MD

Editorial BoardChair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tanveer M. Imam, MDEditor-in-Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zimran Chaudhary, MB, BSCommittee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .M. Yaseen Abubaker, MD

Mohammed Nadeem, MDShahid Yousuf, MD

M. Shahzad Hasan, MDWasique Mirza, MD

Urdu Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ghazala Kazi, MDFariya Afridi, MD

M. Amin Gadit, MD

DisclaimerAPPNA Journal is the Biannual publication of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA). The Journal is dedicated to providing useful information to the Associa-tion‘s members with special emphasis on organizational matters. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of either the Association or the Editor. APPNA does not assume any responsibility for the authors’ asser-tions nor does it authenticate their validity. Products or services advertised in the Journal are neither endorsed nor guaranteed by APPNA. Reproduction in whole or in part of the materials contained in this Journal without prior written permission from APPNA is prohibited.

PostmasterPlease send address changes to: APPNA Journal, 6414 S. Cass Avenue, Westmont, IL 60559.

SubscriptionFree with APPNA Membership. To apply for membership please go to the APPNA Website at: www.appna.org

Advertising, Submission of Articlesand CorrespondenceDenise Burt, APPNA Central Office6414 S. Cass Avenue, Westmont, II. 60559Phone: (630) 968-8585/ Fax: (630) 968-8677E-mail: [email protected]

The Editor reserves the right to editall submitted material.

Deadlines for submission of materials: Fall Newsletter – September 10, 2012 Winter Journal – December 15, 2012

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Table of ContentsEditorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3President’s Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5President-Elect’s Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Immediate Past President’s Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Secretary’s Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Treasurer’s Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Manto’s Ambivalence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10APPNA/PPS Health Center Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Dental APPNA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Book Review: American Manto? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14GPWG ... Investing In Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15APPNA Hepatitis C Awareness & Education Initiative. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Detroit Doctors’ House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17A Letter To My Father. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18APPNA Qissa, APPNA Qazzia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19A Surgeon Committed To A Stronger Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Saving Face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Tiger Man – Change Of Heart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22WAPPNA Report: The War On Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Committee Reports APPNA Annual Literary Award Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Committee For Young Physicians. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Research, Education & Scientific Affairs Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Adhoc Committee For APPNA Free Clinics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Disaster Relief Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Advocacy & Legislative Affairs Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Membership Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Office Management & Oversight Committee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Constitution & Bylaws Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Social Welfare & Disaster Relief Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Alumni Reports Aga Khan Universtiy Alumni Association of North America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Allama Iqbal Medical College Alumni of North America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Dow Graduate Association of North America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Fatima Jinnah Medical College Alumni of North America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 King Edward Medical College Alumni Association of North America . . . . . 36 Khyber Medical College Alumni Association of North America . . . . . . . . . . 37 Qaid-e-Azam Medical College Alumni Association of North America . . . . . 37 Rawalpindi Medical College Alumni Association of North America. . . . . . . 38Photo Gallery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Urdu Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44


Dear APPNA Family, Assalam-O-Alaikum,

The year 2012 has been full of excitement for APPNA. We have achieved several mile-stones that have further exem-plified APPNA as the leading organization of members of

Pakistani descent in North America. We remain committed to our theme for 2012 to Enlighten, Empower and Excel.

At the end of May, our membership stood at 3,348, which is a 17% increase over last year and is the highest since its incep-tion. The Membership Committee did a stellar job marketing APPNA. A significant part of this success is also attributed to APPNA’s new registration system in the paperless office, implemented by the tireless efforts of the APPNA Office Management Committee and staff. Although we experienced a number of challenges in upgrading the previous system and bringing it live, the end product is a remarkable system that is a quantum leap forward in managing the membership’s needs.

One of our key goals this year is supporting our young physi-cians in primarily three areas: nurture and support young phy-sicians through networking for electives; expand their housing options to add subsidized housing for young physicians in Michigan; facilitating the visa process so they can join their residency on time. The Young Physicians’ team and Advocacy Committee has worked hard to accomplish these. We have made significant inroads in the State Department to stream-line the visa processing of young physicians. The best news is that out of the 16 physicians who were waiting for visa approval to join their residency programs this year, 14 have received clearance and one is being expedited. We are continu-ing to build on our relationship with the relevant officials to further enhance the visibility and future success for young physicians’ visas.

Charitable projects are the cornerstone of APPNA. Our Social Welfare Committee has raised the necessary funds to set up one eye camp in Pakistan on a monthly basis till year-end.

President’s Report

Saima Zafar, MD APPNA President 2012

Such camps help restore people’s eyesight and arrange surgery for those who need to be treated beyond that. We plan to build a village in the flood stricken area, where people are still living under the mercy of the sky, for two years after the devas-tating flood.

Can APPNA helps with Saving Faces? APPNA has formulated a plan to collaborate with plastic surgeons in Pakistan to treat the victims of acid and fire related burns. We will have a team of APPNA plastic surgeons and psychiatrists from U.S.A serve to transfer knowledge, skill and technology to the centers in Pakistan. Focus on creating mini fellowships for burn manage-ment and telemedicine will be implemented.

Our commitment to Youth Excellence led us to develop a pro-gram during the summer meeting, where 100 youth will go to the White House and learn about policy making. Additionally, we will promote networking of youth so they can help each other progress together.

The planning and execution of the summer meeting is moving ahead on course in the capable hands of the Host Committee. To date, we have achieved some record-breaking milestones by the middle of May: 1) All 1700 hotel rooms allocated to APPNA were booked; 2) All 2900 of the seats for the Saturday Banquet were sold out. We have a waiting list of over 600 peo-ple, and are looking at alternatives to accommodate them; 3) Total revenue of $1,300,000 generated; 4) The seats of the Youth Excellence Program are being rapidly subscribed. We look forward to a Summer Meeting that is successful educa-tionally, socially and is entertaining for the membership and their families.

As always, I welcome any feedback or input for making APPNA more dynamic in serving the needs of it’s member-ship.

God Bless APPNA

Thank you and Allah Hafiz, Saima Zafar, MD President, APPNA 2012

Enlighten, Empower and Excel


Dear Colleagues:

APPNA represents eighteen thousands Physicians of Pakistani descent in North America, with a membership base around 2800. It is the most organized and largest

democratic organization of the Pakistani community. We have a glorious past with many feathers in our hat.

Every year we conduct elections where members exercise their democratic right and elect their officials. In the past several years, time and again we are experiencing an organization torn by divisions, craving for unity. Sometimes I wonder what dif-ferent an organization we have become in a time when the world is more difficult a place for Pakistan or Pakistani origin. Interests in “Elections” have superseded the interest of the organization. There are noble agendas and uphill tasks waiting for hands to do them. It is not that nothing is being done.

President-Elect’s Report

Javed Suleman, MD APPNA President-Elect 2012

APPNA is doing its best in this situation, but we have much more potential than what we show. Only if we realize that as Pakistani American community our destiny lies together, in our own hands and in our own hearts. We need Unity in our rows and love and affection in our hearts. Time is passing by and we need to realize it now!

Three to four times a year, I volunteer my time in a charity hospital in Pakistan. I see the pain of poverty, malnutrition, hunger and diseases first hand. I know these have no ethnicity, race or color. They are in a “race against time” and they are losing, unless something is done. Yes, we can contribute much more than what we do now, only if we realize, not just as an organization but a community.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall.

Truly, Javed Suleman, MD President-Elect APPNA 2012


Dear APPNA Members,

Assalam-O-Alaikum. It is my plea-sure to continue serving APPNA as Immediate Past President. I would like to take this opportunity to update you on some recent issues that you might have received prior information about.

A few months ago you received a 22-page report from the Treasurer of APPNA, Dr. Farid Qazi, which was full of errors and allegations. I must point out that it is not an authorized report of an officer and was never approved through due process of discussion in the Executive Committee. An APPNA administrator released it to the Council after 1:00 a.m. on April 28th, 2012. This report was unfortunately and dis-gracefully released to numerous Internet chat groups, maligning me and the Executive Committee of 2011 and the whole of APPNA on the Internet.

I condemn this outright violation of authority and trust placed in us as officers by the membership. In order to set the record straight, I sub-mit the following.

The year 2011 was full of hardships for APPNA as our organization had to rectify many significant issues that APPNA was facing. The not-for-profit status of APPNA was revoked and we addressed this issue by completing an audit of the past five years in order to regain our status. I am proud we were able to do so but it was not easy as it took a toll on the officers and office staff. In addition, we decided it was best to let our old accountant go and hire a new accountant at the recommendation of the Office Management Committee. The monies collected during the year were erroneously allocated to different accounts and there were some unavoidable delays in communications between our events manager and the office on payments of some out-standing bills.

Regardless, we were able to overcome these issues and continue to bring in funds, host successful meetings, continue previous projects, and initiate new projects in both the United States and Pakistan.

Now I shall address some of the allegations in the report.

The most egregious of the allegations is about the SWDRC funds of $181,000 as being “missing”. Let me explain this false accusation of stealing of funds. According to the bank account statement for SWDRC as of December 31st, 2010, we had a balance of $239,803.74. The outgoing President of 2010 never informed me or Chairperson of SWDRC of 2011 that there were more charitable funds present in

Immediate Past President’s Report

Manzoor Tariq, MD Immediate Past President

APPNA accounts than mentioned above. When APPNA had to fulfill its commitment to the HDF for the Ist installment of $264,853.00 in 2011, it was paid as committed in 2010. An additional $64,000 had to be provided from the general funds. Another explanation for the SWDRC account not having enough money is that the accountant, Mr. Lade, did not care to put it in the right account. Neither I nor the Treasurer or the Chair of the SWDRC was aware of this. In short, the deficit for HDF installment was fulfilled from general funds. It was the first loss that became evident among others at the end of the year. Furthermore, there was a mention of $34,785.00 for the Sind Flood Project missing. Unfortunately it was never deposited in the SWDRC account and APPNA should pay this amount to the designated proj-ect. We were told on January 27th, 2012 during our EC orientation meeting that there will be $199.000 in the SWDRC of 2011 account at end of the year 2011. Among this money, $150,000 is designated money from Southern CA for the Sajawal Project and remaining $49,000 was considered for these projects and should have been paid to these respective projects.

In order to rectify past issues and straighten APPNA’s status, funds, and other projects, we had to spend quite a bit of money in 2011.

APPNA had to pay over $55.000 for the past five years’ audit in order to be compliant with IRS requirements to regain our charitable status, which was lost during 2010 and our all charitable activities were halted till we got our charitable status restored. Moreover, APPNA had to pay its accountant Dave Lade over $35,000 in the form of compensation and let him go.

In 2010, APPNA did not pay the rent of APPNA House in New York for the months of

October, November, and December and the landlord was going to evict our young

physician. The EC decided to pay that owed rent which was approxi-mately $9,600 and during 2011 rent has been paid on time as prom-ised, totaling over $44,000.

For the Summer Meeting of 2011, APPNA had to pay the St. Louis Convention Center over $100,000 through the Renaissance Grand Hotel to use the facilities, which was agreed upon when contract was signed long time ago without my involvement as I was not part of the decision making committee at that time.

It is evident from the above account that we have to spend more than $200,000 in 2011 that was unforeseen and was not budgeted for that

(Continued on Page 12)


Secretary’s Report

alumni banner, continuing to bring this issue to the attention of lawmakers as well as having a strong relationship with Senator Casey who is assisting them. Dr. Manzoor Tariq, chairman of the Advocacy Committee, was personally involved in all the efforts, made multiple visits to the State Department and Homeland Security and was able to successfully help several physicians in this regard. Although APPNA is making a lot of progress with this difficult issue, there is still a long way to go. Our organization has an ongoing dialogue with the State Department and Homeland Security for young physician’s visa related issues.

Hepatitis C project under the leadership of Dr. Maqbool Arshad, is ongoing in Pakistan and becoming the crown jewel of APPNA projects. This project is not only focusing on education but also on prevention, education and hopefully treatment of this epidemic.

APPNA international trip to Russia was successful with 120 physicians and their families attending under the leadership of Dr. Riaz Chaudhry. I want to acknowledge our event manager, Tipu Ahmed for his relentless efforts in arranging a successful trip.

Under the direct supervision of President, Dr. Saima Zafar, the leadership development program and mentor program for young students is underway with significant promise that this project will help our new generation of students to choose a career in the United States.

The Social Welfare Committee continues to complete their projects that are ongoing in Pakistan and distribute funds, which were collected for the flood of 2011 and 2012, and super-vising several projects in Pakistan.

After four years APPNA is back in Washington DC. As I am writing this report, preparations for the summer meeting are enthusiastically under way. It will be under the supervision of the host committee and Dr. Zahid Butt who has served APPNA in similar capacity several years ago. We are looking forward to a very successful and productive meeting.

Asif M. Rehman, MD, FACC APPNA Secretary 2012

Assalaam-Alaikum. It is my great honor to serve APPNA this year as Secretary. I am grateful for the trust APPNA membership has placed in me.

The APPNA EC had officer orientation in Chicago in January 2012, where we had a

productive meeting with the office staff. Mr. Harris Ahmed was invited who met with the EC and gave a presentation about working and leadership program focusing on the EC. During this meeting, the EC also highlighted the strategy vision for the year, which focused on leadership development and improve-ment on office capabilities. We had three teleconferences; min-utes were provided to the EC in a timely manner. All the meet-ings of the EC were recorded which are now available in the archives. This year the main focus of the President and the Chairman Office Management Committee, Dr. Arif Agha is to improve technical ability of the office and convert it to a paper-less office with an upgrade of the website. After completion of the upgrade, membership verification will be completed on line. Each member will have access through a password to upgrade his or her profile. Electronic depositing was started with the help of the new website. All these ongoing measures are being done to improve the efficiency of the office.

The spring meeting in Las Vegas was extremely successful due to the excellent job of the host committee. Mr. Rob Nabors, Director of Legislative Affairs at the White House was the key-note speaker. Mr. Nabors gave the EC and Host Committee an opportunity to have a round table discussion where the major-ity of young physician’s issues were brought to his attention. Nicole Borreca from the State Department gave a 2-hour pre-sentation focusing on how to improve young physician visa and security related issues.

The Young Physicians Committee and Advocacy Committee will continue to press the issue for timely clearance of young physicians. In recent years this has become a major focus of APPNA. I want to acknowledge the efforts of Dow Alumni Association and, particularly, Dr. Zafar Iqbal, Dr. Farrukh Hashmi, Dr. Muslim Jami, Dr. Talha Saddiqui and Dr. Mansoor Abidi for not only collaborating with APPNA, but under their

Asif Rehman, MD APPNA Secretary 2012


Dear APPNA Family, Assalam-O-Alaikum,

Welcome to the Capitol City and APPNA Summer meeting. I will like to thank and commend the Host Committee for their hard work and efforts, as a result of

which we hope to have one of the best Summer Meetings.

It has been an honor to serve as the Treasurer and Chairperson of the Finance Committee this year. Financial health of the organization is one of the corner stone of any successful organization. The issues which we faced at the beginning of the year have been shared with you. It is unavoidable to mention that at the beginning of the year APPNA found itself without an accountant, and the organization has had to replace the book keeper. In addition I did not receive com-pleted accounts for the year 2011. As we work to correct the inherited issues, I will focus on the report for this year.

One of the major tasks in the beginning of the year was to organize APPNA accounts so that there is clear identification and management for monies received for various functions, including charity and administrative issues. To this end separate accounts were established in the beginning of the year for SWDRC, various meetings, CME, APPNA merit and so on.

An audit was initiated in a timely fashion for the accounts of 2011. The final report of the audit has been delayed due to some of the accounting issues faced last year; however we expect the audit to be completed in the early part of June and a report should be available at the meeting in Washington..

It is my pleasure to report that APPNA Spring meeting in Las Vegas was budget Neutral, and we still have outstanding collectibles of $12,000, on receipt of which the spring meeting would show a profit. The International Meeting in May is approximately $47,000 in profit. Thanks to the good organization by Tipu and Dr. Riaz Chaudhry. The

Farid Qazi, MD APPNA Treasurer 2012

SWDRC committee has been active in its efforts and has collected nearly $200,000 and collectables of $100,000 which have been distrib-uted to or supported several projects of APPNA.

I will like to express my gratitude to members of the Finance Committee, Cochair Dr. Mubasher Rana, Dr. Masood Akbar, Dr. Azfar Malik and Dr. Muhammad Tahir; for their diligent work, and invalu-able support. One of the major functions of the finance committee is to ensure the health of APPNA fixed investments, including the Life Time dues.

On March 31st, 2012 the investment funds of APPNA had U.S.$ 1,206,449. It was up by 11.5% since January 2012 Considering the current market trends, we have not put in more money in the invest-ment as suggested by our financial advisor and would be investing in small amounts to take benefit of the positive turn of the markets. We are also awaiting deposits of life time dues from 2011 totaling into the funds. I am awaiting data from the membership committee and sum-mer Meeting committee on the number of life Time Members in 2012. With the deposits of life time dues from 2011 and 2012 we expect the APPNA investment funds to be approximately $1.5 million by July 1st 2012.

The summer meeting this year has record attendance and record reve-nue collection. I am very confident that Dr. Zahid Butt has put a lot of time and effort in the meeting which would end with record profit as expected. I am quite confident that you as a member would not be paying the bills for a Limousine or other extravagant expenditure. I assure you that there are no free rooms or tickets given out. The exec-utive committee including the president and myself has paid for our rooms and our tickets.

Last but not the least I will like to thank all the members of APPNA and am humbled by the trust you have placed in me.

Farid Qazi, M.D.

Treasurer’s ReportCapitol City & APPNA Summer Meeting


Habits) is about a stationary train (implicitly during the time of partition) where some people come and ask about whether there were any “roosters” around. The passengers initially hesitate, but then one person answers that they should themselves look in the trunk on the berth above them. Armed with spears some men enter the compartment and break the trunk, where they find a “rooster”. One calls out whether he should sacrifice the “rooster”. The other replies, “no, not here, take it out of the train, the compartment’s

floor would get dirty.” The story ends here.

Another story is called, “Sorry”, as in the English word. It consists of a few sentences depicting the act of stabbing. The knife continues beyond the abdo-men and cuts open the trousers. “The killer just says, “uh oh, I committed a mistake”, leading the reader to believe that as the trouser falls down the “iden-tity” of the victim is revealed in some capacity. Yet another story is Munasib Karawai (the proper decision). The story opens with a married couple who after hiding in their basement for sev-eral days feel compelled to come out. They go to their neighbor’s house and implore them to kill them as they can-not bear it anymore. The neighbors who were Jains said that it was clearly

against their religion to kill people. After giv-ing the request some thought, however, they deliver the couple to people in an adjoining neighborhood who did not share the same beliefs.

A New Beginning In the post-partition climate when everyone was trying to understand or perhaps forget

Sa’dat Hasan Manto (1912-1955), the famous Urdu short story writer, in a non-fiction piece written in the early 1950s as an introduction (Jaib-e-Kafan) to a collection of his short sto-ries (Yazid) looks back at the time he spent in Bombay (twelve years) just before he migrated to Pakistan. He writes about the city with warmth and a sense of extreme loss, yet reconciles with the inevitable fact that he is now in Pakistan. But, he says, coming to the new country was full of uncertainty and anxiety;

“. . . no one had given it a thought that after such a revolution things would not remain the same. Whether small alleys would become large highways or their existence would be completely lost, we did not have an answer. Would there be a dif-ference between the governance by for-eigners or by those we call our own, about this people were not sure either. How would the new cultural and social atmo-sphere nurture our thoughts and feelings? What would be the relationship between the state, government, community and the indi-vidual? These were issues that we needed to seri-ously concentrate on.”

In addition to the addressing the fracturing of the social body, Manto’s voice also forces us rethink the moment in Pakistan’s history where contesting voices of uncertainty and

confusion, against an emerging nationalist framework, discussed and debated what shape would Pakistan’s social, political and cultural life take in the ensuing years. In this short space I cannot share the entire spec-trum of the debate, but to honour Manto on his hundredth birth anniversary being cele-brated this year, let me focus on some of his Partition short stories to suggest a reading that partially addresses questions of identity as it emerged in the post-Partition era.

The StoriesSiah Hashiye, published in 1948, is Manto’s major book of very short stories that depicts the absurdness and the arbitrary nature of partition’s violence. Rather, than present each and every story, I will share a few of plots in an attempt to convey the flavor of Manto’s writing. One story titled, Safai Pasandi (Clean

Manto’s AmbivalenceKamran Asdar Ali


the carnage of the past year, such pieces of fic-tion had an uneasy aura about them. These morally ambiguous and disturbing stories that most of the time did not mark people through their religious or cultural affiliations exposed Manto to criticism from the Left and the Right. As much as the state took Manto to court for what it perceived as “obscene” litera-ture, the Progressive writers as well, under the influence of the radical line of the late 1940s, also condemned Manto for his anti-humanist and pessimistic writings.

Yet critics like, Mohammad Hasan Askari, defended Manto’s writings and its importance within the genre of partition literature. Manto’s short stories, Askari argues in his introduction to Siah Hashiye portray how in extraordinary times people sometimes have ordinary habits. If, for example, Askari goes on, that in unusual times it may be plausible that someone after killing two hundred peo-ple wears a necklace made out of their skulls. But when, we see that these same individuals are worried about blood stains on the floor of the rail carriage, echoing a scene from one of Manto’s stories (Clean Habits, see above) in which this carnage took place then, Askari contends, we are in the realm of the some-thing that shocks us. For a killer to keep on killing does produce a feeling of disgust, but it is expected of him. But, Askari asserts, we are surprised when we observe that people who retain a sense of aesthetics, a sense of what is cleanliness, of what is pure and yet continue to kill.

To have ordinary feelings while committing extra ordinary acts shows how human beings can simultaneously have contradictory quali-ties. This, according to Askari, is the crux of Manto’s optimism; amongst all the uncertain-ties and prevailing violence as witnessed dur-ing partition of British India, the ordinary and pure sentiment humans’ posses could not be crushed. For Askari, Manto does not shame people or label them as good or bad, rather he

portrays how we are pulled back by our core humanity whenever we commit acts that are excessively barbaric. Within the parameters of such an argument Manto, according to Askari has more faith in human nature than people give him credit for (this was of course a jab at the Progressives).

In addition, I would argue Manto also opens up an arena for us to appreciate the emergent debate on post partition identity. As we know the post-independence Pakistani state empha-sized national unity on the basis of a single national language (Urdu) and a unified reli-gious identity (Islam) which remained in con-flict with the cultural and linguistic diversity of the people who had become part of this new land. I would read some of Manto’s short stories written after the carnage of 1947 dur-ing the early years of Pakistan existence as representing his already developing ambiva-lence and uncertainty about the consolidation of a unitary identity in the Pakistani state. For example, if we take the short story “Sorry”, it may not only deal with the similarity and dis-tance between self and the other, Hindu or Muslim, but it is also about how in the new country people – much like Manto’s own uncertainty – were still unsure about who they were or had become. What lay under the trouser after the violent act of ripping it open can of course be read in terms of religious or for that matter sexual/gender identity. But the “exposure” or the “unveiling” of what lies underneath may also be understood as the ambiguous nature of identity itself in a post-catastrophic moment, the early years of Pakistan’s history. The act of stabbing had cre-ated a fissure and perhaps an open wound which could not be correctly identified or healed. These fissures would fester and con-tinue to trouble subsequent Pakistani history, whether in the form of the struggle of inde-pendence in East Pakistan/Bangladesh, or in the insurgencies for regional autonomy in Baluchistan or perhaps now with the war in

the north-western part of the country.

ConclusionIn Manto I find there is an idiosyncratic and unpredictable sense of the future which con-tains within itself political elements that depend on everyday forms of cultural expres-sion that may not always rely upon fixed cate-gories of institutionalized politics. Manto was constantly agitated in his writings about set-tled endings (a hallmark of Progressive litera-ture on Partition, especially see Krishan Chandar’s, Peshawar Express), in one of his essays he gives an example of a young middle class beautiful woman who runs away with a destitute good for nothing young man. Rather than moralize about her, he wonders about her future life and unresolved future. He does not want her to “come to her senses” as a nor-mative rendition of this story would demand, rather he shows how desire creates moments where different histories – the middle class woman, the underclass man – brush against each other. By positing the particular life his-tories and the related counter-logics that emerge from the “perversities” of such exis-tences, Manto’s intervention is a critique of teleological thinking that claims to know the future. In the final analysis, his short stories written after the carnage of 1947 during the early years of Pakistan existence should be read as representing his ambivalence toward the understanding of human subjectivity, but also depicting his uncertainty toward the desire for a unitary identity in the new place called Pakistan.

Kamran Asdar Ali, a 1987 DMC graduate went on to study cultural anthropology. He teaches at the University of Texas, Austin.


All this would not have been possible without your support and we are counting on your support in the future.

Center runs with individual donations and organizational donations from APPNA and PPS.

Thanks feel free to call me with questions,

Thanks, Imtiaz Arain, MD Chair APPNA/PPS health center 2012 630-476-6250

APPNA/PPS Health Center located in Westmont Illinois, nonprofit organization registered in the state of Illinois.

Center has been in operation since November 2008 serving community at large, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity and ability to pay.

We do not charge for our services.

Center opened with the help of APPNA and physicians of the local community who volun-teers their time every Saturday from 9 AM to 1 PM. Center is always staff by licensed physi-cian, student volunteers, and phlebotomist.

Onsite services includes patient evaluation and treatment, prescription medication and

on site blood draws, social services, patient counseling, ophthalmology services.

Patient load has been steadily increasing over the last few years to the point that we have no room to accommodate people on Saturdays only, we See about 20-25 patients on Saturdays and are planning to open the center on week days.

We have broad network of specialist who see patient off-site on referral basis without any charge.

We have partners our self with local hospitals to provide patients with very low cost labora-tory and imaging services.

Due to the increasing demand and adding more Onsite services, we need to expand the center to accommodate that.

We also plan to add ENT/Dental services and specialty clinics in the future.

We are planning to hire advance nurse practi-tioner to help manage the workflow.

APPNA/PPS Health Center ReportImtiaz Arain, MD, Chair, APPNA/PPS Health Center 2012

year. I take full responsibility of this unfortunate state of our financial affairs at the beginning of the year 2012. APPNA’s finances have never been great at the end of any year let alone 2011 when we had unprece-dented expenses to cover. It will be very unfair, to say the least, to blame last year’s Treasurer for mismanagement. As you can see. he has nothing to do with the above-mentioned expenses that we had to do in 2011 for the sake of our organization.

Another alarming misrepresentation in Dr. Qazi’s letter was in regards to the Winter Meeting of 2011. He claimed that the Winter Meeting had a net loss of $12,252.99. However, the Winter Meeting was in real-ity profitable. The total revenue collected for the meeting was $24,000 and the total money disbursements were $22,000, making the meeting profitable. I must also point out that QMC, independent of APPNA, collected and spent over $12,000 for this meeting in Pakistan.

I have honestly served APPNA to the best of my abilities. I have always raised funds and brought many unrestricted grants for APPNA over the past several years, in excess of $300,000. The Presidency of APPNA gets you involved in so many different directions that one

cannot focus on raising funds. I take full responsibility of my decisions during my presidency. I am responsible for the steps I took and nobody else should be made scapegoat for political reasons. It is despi-cable when elected officers who are expected to uphold the trust of membership fall prey to petty politics and compromise their integrity.

At the end I would like to say that we all should be honest and sincere to APPNA and its cause. One should not exploit APPNA and its membership for electioneering and political gains. I recommend that APPNA should look deeper into APPNA’s accounts for the last several years to determine our management shortcoming to fix this problem once for all and the results should be shared with the membership to uphold our pledges to accountability and transparency.

Thank you.

Best Regards, Manzoor Tariq, MD Immediate Past President

Immediate Past President’s Report (Continued from page 7)


Dental Problems in Children”, sharing his experience as a pediatric dentist with attend-ees. In 2011, Dr. Khalid Almas, a periodontist from Connecticut, gave a brilliant lecture about the diagnosis and management of peri-implantitis.

2012 has been an exciting year for us as we continue to realize our goals as an organiza-tion. For the first time, Dental APPNA part-nered with Remote Area Medical, RAM, sending a team of dentists to rural Tennessee. Dr. Lubna Alam, Dr. Aliya Khan, and myself spent an amazing weekend helping residents of this underserved community. Patients of this area waited 24 hours for care, many spending the night in the parking lot of the clinic. Restorations, extractions, and prophy-laxis were performed for over 600 patients. They were also instructed in hygiene and given samples of tooth-brushes and toothpaste. It was an unforgettable experience for us. We hope to return next year with a larger team, inshallah.

Also for the first time in 2012, Dental APPNA will be providing PACE certified credit hours to attendees. The AGD chapter of Washington DC has sponsored our meeting. It’s president, Dr. John Drumm will be in attendance. Our lecturer this year is Dr. Faisal Quereshy, associate professor of Oral Maxillofacial Surgery at Case Western Reserve. We look forward to his talk and once again recognize the incredible talent of Pakistani dentists in North America. A net-working luncheon will follow the talk. Dentists will have an opportu-nity to meet their colleagues from different parts of the country and Canada.

Dental APPNA is a new member of the APPNA family. Founded in 2008, by Dr. Sarwat Iqbal, Dr. Javaid Iqbal, and Dr. Sami Janjua, Dental APPNA sought to bring together Pakistani dentists from North America. Our stated goals are to provide care for underserved communities in North America and Pakistan, to provide continuing education for our members, and to organize Pakistani dentists to network professionally. Our current executive team includes myself, our treasurer, Dr. Mohammad Arshad, and our secretary, Dr. Lubna Alam. Past presi-dents, Dr. Tahir Paul and Dr. Sami Janjua con-tinue to remain very active contributors in our organization.

From the start, Dental APPNA has been involved in charitable activities in Pakistan. In 2010, we partnered with Shine Humanity to work in a charitable hospital in rural Kashmir. Supplies and used equipment from the U.S. was donated to the dental clinic at the hospi-tal. In 2011, we volunteered at the SOS Village in Lahore to provide care for the orphans at this institution. A dental clinic was founded by Dr. Tahir Paul at the SOS orphan-age many years ago. I had the wonderful opportunity to serve at this clinic for three months. I was able to provide routine restora-tions, cleanings, and even root canals and crowns for the children.

Our luncheons at previous summer confer-ences were very successful, bringing together dentists from around the country. It’s at these meetings that we realize the incredible talent of our community of dentists. In 2010, Dr. Tahir Paul gave a lecture entitled, “Common

Moving forward, we hope to continue to expand in all directions. With regards to char-itable work in Pakistan, we are exploring the idea of sponsoring a free dental clinic at the SOS Orphanage in Lahore, Pakistan. We also plan to continue to work with Remote Area Medical to assist rural communities in America that are in need. We hope to con-tinue to develop our CE programs. As a long-term goal, we would like to see Dental APPNA set up local chapters and form local study groups.

We welcome those interested to join Dental APPNA to contribute to our organization and help us move forward. Please check out or photos on Facebook to view photos our pre-vious volunteer trips and meetings.

Dental APPNAWe Welcome Those Interested To JoinAfshan Haque, DDS


American Dervish is a novel written by a first generation American child of Pakistani par-ents, who probably immigrated to the U.S. in the 70s. The setting of the novel is American suburbia, in the era of Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan transition. It is written in the first person: the young Hayat Shah is a pre-adolescent Pakistani-American Catcher in the Rye, who is growing up and learning about life, love and religion as the story progresses, while also absorbing the vagaries and vicissi-tudes of his immigrant parents’ cultural heri-tage and milieu. It is clearly the pre-9/11 world, where Muslims are yet exotic to Americans, and the villains are still Jews, both for the suburban Christians and Catholics who are the classmates and neighbors of the young Hayat, and the innately anti-Semitic Muslims that his parents (reluctantly) interact with. Interwoven in all this is an Epic love story, in the time-honored sub-continental tradition of forbidden and (eventually) unre-quited love, between a Muslim woman and a Jewish man. All in all, a potpourri of circum-stances and situations that serve as a vehicle for the author to unload his sharp observa-tions about Pakistani and Muslim culture, with a mixture of humor, wit, and not infre-quently, disgust.

There are several vividly drawn Pakistani characters in this novel, starting with the young Hayat’s dad, the illustrious Dr. Naveed Shah, who is a neurologist and an academic. The relationship between his parents is quite chilly, because of his Mom not taking kindly to her husband’s womanizing. The parents are secular, not unlike many upper middle class Pakistanis of the 60s and 70s generation, who moved out of the country before the Islamization of the Pakistani society began in earnest. Life in this Pakistani family, trans-planted to a Midwestern suburban town, is dull and boring for the young Hayat, until the arrival of Mina, a vivacious and beautiful childhood friend of his mother, who arrives from Pakistan after divorce from her husband, and ill-treatment at the hand of her in-laws. Hayat is taken in by her beauty, and develops feelings for her that he doesn’t quite under-stand. Mina takes to Hayat, and starts teach-ing him the Quran. He is in thrall to her, but she falls in love with a Jewish man who is a friend and colleague of Hayat’s dad. He is intelligent and sensitive, and she finds in him a kindred soul, who loves books and intelli-gent conversation, and treats her with respect. Her developing relationship with Nathan is all a bit too much for Hayat, whose religious fervor increases as he is all mixed up about his feelings and desire for a woman whom he calls Auntie. It is an amalgam of the erotic and the divine, stuff that Sufi poetry is made of for hundreds of years. Mina tells Hayat sto-ries about Islam, and Sufi stories, including one about a dervish who feels that the path to God lies in negating one’s self completely. Although the book is titled American Dervish, which Hayat imagines himself to be, it is really Mina whose life evolves in a way that she is reduced to nothing by the time the story is done.

Almost all Pakistani (and Muslim) men in this story come out as villains. Shah pere’ treats Hayat’s mom poorly, often gets drunk, and finds solace in the company of his

mistresses. And yet, he is the one who comes out as the only sensible man in this sorry coterie of hypocrites. Even his wife proclaims, after what happens to Mina, that she “doesn’t have it so bad after all’. The backdrop to this (Muslim) men-behaving-badly saga is the treatment of women in Islam, and the author quotes chapter and verse from the Quran, as Hayat struggles to reconcile his rudimentary religious faith with the horrors he is witness-ing at close range. The other theme that runs through this novel is Muslims’ attitude towards Jews, their fellow “people of the Book’. All this is just too much for the young Hayat, who loses his religion, as he watches his beloved Auntie Mina disintegrate in self-abnegation and sacrifice, while accepting her fate as God’s will, and affirming her Sufi faith.

For people of Pakistani origin, and Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in general, American Dervish offers a mirror, held up by a child growing up with his American sensibility, showing all that is incomprehensible in their treatment of women and Jews. It is, after-all, a work of fiction, and individuals reading it will have to make up their mind about the author’s intentions, with his very harsh depic-tions of Islam’s followers, and the response to their actions by the senior Shah, who has already turned his back on the faith. Most first novels are autobiographical, and American Dervish is probably no exception. The use of first person narrative (of a child) limits its author’s ability to offer much by way of explanation and depth to the events in the novel, but the story at times feels like a screed, and one wishes there was more nuance or ambiguity to the characters and their actions.

Ayad Akhtar can certainly tell a story, and he has chosen to show the underbelly of Pakistani culture in the U.S. in his first novel. In this regard, he is like the enfant terrible’ of Urdu literature, Sa’adat Hasan Manto, whose 100 year birth anniversary is being celebrated

Book Review

American Manto?By Nadeem Siddiqui.



GPWG Pilot Project #1Transformative Curriculum Reform In Girls’ Madarasas Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

PrefaceWomen have extraordinary opportunities to change their communities. They play a posi-tive and an important role in society and rep-resent an untapped potential in creating peaceful families, communities and societies. No country can reach its full potential with-out full and equitable participation of its entire population. While the challenges are global, we believe the solutions are local.

There is a broad consensus that investing in women is not only a good social policy, it is “smart economics”. GPWG supports women to become educationally and economically advanced and empowered stakeholders and change agents. Educating girls and women has a multiplier effect, including lower fertil-ity, delayed childbirth, reduced maternal and child mortality, better health and education. At the macroeconomic level, female educa-tion is a key source of support for long-term economic growth. In emerging economies, greater investments in female education could yield a “growth premium” that raises the GDP growth.

ProgramIn February 2011, GPWG* in partnership with International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD) now called Peace and Education Foundation (PEF), and the University of Peshawar in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan facilitated

a first of it’s kind “four-day training work-shop” for 35 female madrasa teachers and administrators in collabora-tion with a local girls’

madrasa. Modeled after a similar impactful program for men, this workshop was held at the Jamia Ayesha Lil Banat in Abbottabad, to avoid the challenges of traveling for many women.

Participants included 35 female teachers and madrasa leaders representing four of the five Islamic schools of thought, which run madra-sas in Pakistan (Deobandi, Barelvi, Jamat-e-Islami, and Ahle-Hadith), four districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Abbottabad, Mansehra, Kohistan, and Haripur), and 27 different madrasas. Participants ranged from 19 to 45 years of age and from 1 to 20 years of teaching experience. The diversity of this group in terms of sect, age, and experience was ideal for creating a dynamic and diverse training environment in which the partici-pants could learn from each other as well as the trainers.

The experiential interactive workshop was designed to:

• Enhanceglobalsecurityinpartnershipwithreligious and civic organizations, by advo-cating and promoting expansion of the madrasa curriculum to include the scien-tific and social disciplines, with a special emphasis on religious tolerance and human rights (particularly women’s faith based rights) and opportunity for interaction among teachers from a variety of schools of thought.

• Provideabetterunderstandingoftheirfield from a theoretical and practical

perspectives and exposure to new dimen-sions of modern research in religious stud-ies and interaction.

• Encouragetheadoptionofpedagogicaltechniques that can promote critical think-ing skills among the students.

• Conveyconflictresolutionanddialoguefacilitation skills.

• Equipnewly-trainedteacherswiththeskills to train other previously uninvolved madrasa leaders in these same areas.

By providing madrasa leaders the opportunity to discuss and reflect on Islamic principles with leaders of other sects, often for the first time in their lives, this program is fostering peaceful coexistence among these diverse groups. It is also encouraging greater adher-ence to the principles of tolerance and human rights in Islam, with an emphasis on how these values were successfully upheld in past Islamic civilizations.

ImpactIn follow up to one of the training programs for female teachers of girls’ madrasas, a Punjabi village hosted a gathering of over 200 female madrasa, parliamentary, and civil soci-ety leaders, who issued a declaration, con-demning religious intolerance and the killing of members of other faiths or sects as being un-Islamic and committed themselves to working to end hatred and extremism. In addition, several madrasas have opened their first-ever vocational training centers for female students, setting an important prece-dent for other female madrasas.

“Never doubt that a small group of thought-ful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” —Margaret Mead

*In 2012 the Fund was named Global Partnership for Women and Girls to reflect it’s global focus.

GPWG … Investing In SolutionsInvest. Educate. Advance. Peace. Global Challenges. Local Solutions.Sarwat Malik MD, FACP, Co-Founder, Global Partnership for Women & Girls / www.gp4wg.org


The conference was attended by representa-tives from ten medical institutions, experts in epidemiology, hospital infection control offi-cials, blood bank representatives, the national transfusion authority director, representatives of major NGO’s working in the field, our edu-cational partners, as well as representatives from the provincial and national legislature.

We have compiled the presentations from the conference along with the pertinent recom-mendations, and we plan to publish it in the next few weeks to be shared to the public in order to further the efforts in controlling the spread of Hepatitis C.

This work is now being spread to district hos-pitals and rural schools. We have two coordi-nators working full time in Pakistan to enroll an expanding number of educational and medical institutions to adopt our modules and spread the message of prevention.

The Hepatitis C awareness online presenta-tion has been recorded (through Cisco sys-tems) and are now available nationwide at the CARE schools. We will also now be able to reach people in remote areas of Pakistan areas via the internet in order to educate them about the disease. This is done with the help of the CARE Foundation. CDs will be sent to places where there’s no internet availability.

The Health Foundation (THF), in collabora-tion with APPNA, has initiated a Hepatitis C awareness campaign starting from the Korangi area of Karachi. THF is disseminat-ing the information provided in the APPNA printed educational materials to various schools within the community.

The APPNA Hepatitis C Initiative has pro-duced eight Hepatitis C awareness animated videos to be run in hospital waiting rooms, schools, cable TV etc. In this regard, Shifa International Hospital-Islamabad has already started to screen these messages on TV screens installed in their waiting rooms. We have also approached Quad-e-Azam International Hospital-Islamabad to run ani-mated videos in their waiting rooms.

Ayub Medical College-Abbottabad is about to start a student-run awareness campaign in their surrounding areas. The printed material has been sent to the campaign supervisor Dr. Noaman Siddiqui, Coordinator/Department of Medical Education.

Maj. Gen. Dr. Hamid Shafiq is supervising another APPNA Hepatitis C awareness cam-paign at the Military Hospital-Rawalpindi. It is expected that a huge daily patient traffic at MH will be educated through posters, bro-chures, and animated videos.

On March 5-6 2012, APPNA and Islamic Relief sponsored an invitational conference on Hepatitis C at the PC Lahore

to address the issue and strategize a multipronged approach to deal with this epidemic.

Positive inroads have been made to organize a day long Hepatitis C awareness session at Cadet College-Hasanabdal. The proposal has been shared with the institution’s board and the campaign is likely to be started as soon as the summer break is over.

Foundation University Medical College-Islamabad, where a group of students under the supervision of Maj. Gen. (R) Dr. Tassawar Hussain (Head of Department of Medicine), is planning awareness activities in schools to spread the message. Two schools have been chosen in Rawalpindi.

The Hepatitis C campaign at Fatima Memorial Hospital-Lahore, and Gulab Devi Hospital-Lahore (a major chest and thoracic surgery center) is planned to start in a few weeks. The Hepatitis C campaign at All the Army Managed Schools-Lahore, had took place through presentations and material dis-tribution. The LACAS school system in Lahore will make our Hepatitis C material a part of their curriculum. Meetings are under-way to decide the specifics.

APPNA Hepatitis C Awareness & Education InitiativeMaqbool Arshad, MD, Chair, APPNA Hepatitis C Initiative


Many of us came to this country with nothing but our degrees, dreams and a little money in our pockets. Matching in a residency position changed our lives forever. The process of obtaining a residency spot has changed radi-cally in recent years. The process has become so competitive that in most instances, having some kind of U.S. experience is a must; this may be in the form of a clinical rotation, observer ship or research. APPNA Doctors’ House in New York, Iqbalian and KEMCAANA Doctors’ House in Philadelphia are such places for candidates to board during this arduous process.Recently, I learned of a unique Doctors’ House in Detroit that is not funded by any organization. I first heard of Dr. Majid Aized last year, when I noticed a regular donation coming into our PayPal account for KEMCAANA Doctors’ House from a non-KEMCOLIAN. I discovered that he is a Nishtar Medical College graduate, currently in his second year of Surgery residency at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. I was surprised that someone with a resident’s salary was being so generous towards our project. I wanted to find out more, and am honored to share my conversation with him. Majid’s story starts in Multan. After graduat-ing, he decided to pursue medical training in United States. Neither Majid nor any of his friends had any idea which city or state to choose for the CSA. Unfortunately, when graduating from an overseas medical school, there is no “manual for applying for U.S. resi-dency.” Majid called a close friend Muzammil who guided them through every step. He briefed them on the exam and advised testing in Philadelphia, where he lived and offered to house Majid and his friends.It was not easy for Muzammil. He had volun-teered to make the three-hour drive and pick

all four doctors in a rental car. Waiting for him was nothing but pure agony for Majid. Will he come? Where will we stay? And how long will our funds last? Muzammil had arranged an overnight stay at another friend’s home for the first night. Majid recalled, “The next morning we started our struggle to find a place to stay. We figured out in which geo-graphical area we wanted to live temporarily to take our CSA. Finding accommodation was the most difficult issue to resolve. We had to pay a security deposit and rent. It cost us $ 2500 in the first month. It was not easy for us. We had to scrape every last bit of money we had to rent an apartment in the University City area in Philadelphia.”Majid’s empathy is heartfelt when he said,” I did not want others to go through what I went through. I put together a map with directions for new arrivals to get to our apartment, which included details of every train and bus number to get them from JFK to Philadelphia.” Majid found a research position in General Surgery at The University of Pennsylvania and remained in Philadelphia for a year. Soon, he started getting calls from new graduates who wanted to come to Philadelphia and needed a place to stay. He worked tirelessly to find accommodations for incoming young graduates from Pakistan, which was challeng-ing, given his small rental unit. He helped as many as he could and recognized the need for a permanent place for graduates in Philadelphia. Soon after, he received a call from Dr. Waqas Khan who was working with Dr. Masood Akbar, exploring the idea of start-ing a Doctors’ House in Philadelphia.Majid was fortunate enough to find a post-match position in General Surgery, and since then, he has dedicated his life to helping oth-ers in a similar position.Majid’s selfless work did not end after the match. While working as a surgical intern, he impressively found the time and energy to help thirty young physicians from Pakistan in the last year and a half in Detroit. He has helped them with accommodations, finding research or observer ship opportunities; six of them pre-matched. A unique challenge for Majid was finding accommodations for four

female graduates, which he was able to arrange with the help of some female resi-dents. Currently, there is no such facility for women in U.S.. Majid gets six to seven calls from female physicians every month. He is frustrated that he cannot help them.” Boys will find a place to stay, it is girls who abso-lutely need our help”, he implored.Majid has established Doctors’ House Detroit; it consists of three apartments, which he has rented. Currently there are twelve male physicians staying here, one female physician is staying with Sarah Tehseen, a Pediatric resi-dent at Children’s Hospital of Michigan. The units are conveniently located within walking distance from the three Wayne State University Hospitals. He pays the security deposit, which is $400. Residents are asked to share the cost of rent, Internet and groceries. These are unfurnished units, thus residents must bring their own bedding whenever pos-sible. In between juggling his busy residency, Majid helps these residents with weekly gro-cery shopping as well. The average resident’s monthly expense is $ 300 per month, which is a huge financial burden for these young men. His house welcomes students from all Medical Schools in Pakistan. Majid has a network of young medical resi-dents who have been extremely helpful. Moreover, he hopes physicians who have been helped by his house will donate in the future to other young graduates.Dr. Majid Aized is an inspiring young man. It is hard to fathom how much he has achieved in such a short time, both professionally and phil-anthropically. His tireless efforts are inspiring, and a call to the rest of us. Majid has recently received help from APPNA. He is currently renting five subsidized apartment, they have been sponsored for one year by KEMCAANA. One apartment for females is sponsored by WAPPNA. Each one is donating $350 per month to subsidize one apartment.There are few people better deserving to be spotlighted and I write this in hopes that Majid will continue to receive support from our APPNA community. You may contact Majid at [email protected].

Detroit Doctors’ HouseA Valiant Effort By A Conscientious DoctorAyesha Najib, MD


Dear Papa

When I rang you today, you were full of beans, as usual. You admitted you were con-sidering getting a walking stick, now that you were 83, but worried that people will think you were old and this was putting you off the idea. However you chuckled when you remembered going up the elevator in a big store recently, when you wondered who the ancient dinosaur was, that looked familiar before realising it was your own image in the big mirror. You admitted that you were get-ting a bit slow and laughed when I quoted Ghalib’s couplet,

“Muzmahil ho gaye qavaa Ghalib

Ab anasir mein aitidaal kahaan”

You said you were getting forgetful and con-cerned you might lose your way back when you go for your early morning walk, but then joked that if it happens we should put up pic-ture-posters of you on the lamp-posts with a message that if anyone finds this man, they should take him to their own home and keep him there, but be warned that he liked Parathas for breakfast and was fond of watch-ing wrestling on the TV. Encouragingly, your forgetfulness is unlikely to be a symptom of anything sinister as you have been forgetful for as long as I can remember, frantically looking for your glasses when they were perched at the tip of your own nose.

Ammi said that you were getting hard of hear-ing but you insisted you were fine, daft not

deaf, could hear what you wanted to hear. I worry about your driving though, but you insist that it was better than mine, reminding me of the time 3 years ago when I struggled to drive in Karachi without honking. Now you take your grandchildren to school regu-larly, dodging the chaotic traffic and luckily this has been uneventful.

Ammi can go out and meet people but I worry about you as you cannot strike up ran-dom conversations with strangers or engage in small talk, devoid of intellectual challenge. You do not find anyone nowadays to argue about religion, god or intricacies of Persian or Urdu poetry or even politics. Ammi does not share your interests and I cannot indulge you as often as I would have liked. You go to the local mosque only on special occasions and do not wish to start regular prayers at this stage in your life, even for communal pur-poses, which restricts your social circle immensely. You invoke Baba Daani, the elderly godless sage in your village who justi-fied his non-adherence to the rituals by say-ing, “na gunah kerdey aan, na namazaan perd-hey aan” (neither do I commit any sin, nor pray to beg for mercy). In fact the local preachers suspect you of being an odd-bod, who always argues with them on some frivo-lous issue, without letting them in on the secret that you consider the whole faith caboodle to be based on a false pretence. Yet you remain extremely interested in religion, and translated quranic verses, quoted from Shibli’s Seerat-un-Nabi and Tafseer-ibn-e-Kaseer, when arguing with me, when I, as a teenager embraced religion, as a direct reac-tion to your atheism.

You used to be an avid collector of books and a voracious reader, but you do not read much these days and appear to have lost your appe-tite. However, you continued to read Dawn regularly and discussed Cowasjee and Amir

Ayaz, when he wrote for the paper, but lately you have stopped scanning the papers as well, which worry me immensely. I wonder if it is due to the gloomy headlines, which drag your spirits down. I am sure you will quote some shair if asked, although my favourite would have been,

Pehle devaana bana detey the logoan ko haseen

Aur ab shehr ke haalaat bana detey hain

Although we cannot meet as often as I, and you, would like to, due to compulsions of modern life (makroohaat-e-dunyavi) and now that I am a husband and a father, I must be grateful for small mercies and rejoice in these moments when we can still speak over the telephone and share a shair or a joke, when-ever we want. I remember Barri Ammi could not remember faces and names when she was old and it was painful to speak to her over the phone and although you refuse to start Sudoku as I continue to suggest, I am glad that you are healthy in body and mind and can still crack a joke and laugh heartily at mine.

Although you were brought up in an era when fathers remained rather aloof from their chil-dren who were invariably their mother’s responsibility and although you have been overly restrained in expressing emotions openly, have never said that you loved me, as Dads never did and children had to deduce from various other acts of kindness that their fathers loved them, I belong to a new era and hope to be a new Dad and a new son. It may be embarrassing for a 50-year-old son to admit, but admit I will, loudly and clearly.

I love you Papa.

I may even post you this soppy letter, one day.

A Letter To My FatherJamshed Bashir, MBBS


determined by the self-appointed and self-anointed custodians of the faith. Part of that generation came to America and is now part of APPNA.

4. Another curse afflicting APPNA is the ten-dency to drag APPNA into a court of law when election results are not to the liking of a losing candidate. In the past ten years APPNA has been sued a number of times. One would expect our leaders to be humble in victory and magnanimous in defeat.

This poses an inevitable question: why do people want to become president of APPNA? It is expensive (by some estimate it cost $100,000) and once in office, the job involves dodging bullets and putting out fires. Nothing significant gets accomplished except staging a spectacular annual mela which is always big on glitz and short on substance. I have never heard any of our APPNA leaders talk about their vision of a future APPNA. They all live in the moment. A past president of a recent vintage said it correctly that it is the prestige of leading an organization like APPNA that compels many to seek its presidency.

It perhaps gives them an enhanced sense of self-worth. Whether it is making a grand entrance to the beat of a dohl or giving away umpteen awards in the presence of thousands of people at the Saturday night banquet, the same sense underlines and accents the need. I wonder if in not too distant a future, presi-dents would be brought in a palanquin or rid-ing a white stallion with a troupe of bhands and jugglers leading the way.

Enough of present and past history and diag-nosis. What about treatment?

We can chose to do nothing and let this the-ater-of-the-absurd take APPNA to new depths. Or we find courage, stiffen our backs and help change the course. I believe the time

For the past many years, as APPNA elections approach, the contestants start a campaign of self-promotion and at times try to discredit their opponents. Occasionally there are hints of financial misappropriation and breach of trust. The accusations and counteraccusa-tions detailed in recent letters to members are but one example of the state of affairs we are facing in APPNA. I have no idea or informa-tion if there was misappropriation or mis-placement of $180.000 from APPNA coffers. There do exist mechanisms within APPNA to look into such things. But this is not the sub-ject of my essay. Instead I wish to discuss issues that, in my opinion, have marred APPNA in recent years.

How did we get to this juncture where trust, dignity and humility- hallmark of leaders- have become casualties of big egos, empty minds and deep pockets?

This association was, for the first 20 years of its existence, an example of fairness, courtesy, trust and genuine fellowship. The nomination committee representing a cross section of membership picked a slate of officers that it its judgment best served the organization. Elections were held in an atmosphere of respect and fairness, and all parties accepted the outcome. There was no pre-election rush to sign up new members with questionable qualifications. The spirit of APPNA was the moral compass that guided everyone. APPNA was a professional organization organization like the American College of Surgeons, American Medical Association or any of the specialty societies.

I can pinpoint the current state of affairs to

four interconnected turning points in the his-tory of APPNA: making nominating commit-tee irrelevant, unbridles advertisement, attempts to make APPNA a religious organi-zation and a tendency to sue APPNA.

1. The Bylaws provide that the nominating committee would select a slate of officers. However to safeguard against any possible bias on the part of the nominating committee, an alternate pathway was provided. A candi-date could get on the ballot if he or she had the written support of fifteen members of the association. This back door entry, provided as an exception, has now become the main path-way to nomination.

2. With the certainty of getting on the ballot, the candidates started to launch a full blown political campaign involving letters, glossy brochures and personal phone calls that would put any professional telemarketer to shame. A new low was reached a few years ago when candidates started appearing on ethnic cable television channels.

3. Some elected officers believed that it was their mission to force an Islamic identity on APPNA even though APPNA is, and has always been, a secular organization. In one of the annual dinners the then president declared, “Alhamdo Lillah, we are all Muslims”.

Perhaps he did not know or did not care that APPNA has on its rolls non-Muslim members as well. Where is the sensitivity, pray tell, towards our fellow members who happen to be Pakistanis but profess to a different faith?

The rise of Islamic orthodoxy in Pakistan and in turn in APPNA can be traced to the gener-ation that grew up in Pakistan under Zia ul Haq’s xenophobic rule (1979-89). It led to the rise of religious high-handedness on col-lege campuses where it was not uncommon for religious bullies to beat up fellow students who did not conform to “true Islam” as

The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.Julius Caesar (Act 1, Scene ii, 140-141)

APPNA Qissa, APPNA QazziaS. Amjad Hussain, MD



“Dubai Long live plastic surgery!”

That’s how Dr. Mohammad Jawad concludes his email interview.

It’s entirely understandable. His call to glory works at different levels. He says it as much for himself as for the hundreds of people who are helped by it everyday. The latter category however does not comprise of people who feel their nose needs a slight tilt to the right or their lips need more plump and pout. Fortunately, the science and art of plastic surgery long ago shed its image as a creature that slithers along the hushed corridors of posh clinics cater-ing to rich people with poor self-esteem.

The power of plastic surgery to reshape and rehabilitate trauma victims is, happily, a universally understood reality today.

Dr. Jawad, a Karachi-born and currently London-based plastic surgeon is no stranger to fame. In 2008, his efforts at reshaping and rehabilitating Katie Piper, a well-known UK model and TV presenter earned him world-wide acclaim. (Piper was a victim of an acid attack by her ex-boyfriend. After her success-ful rehabilitation by Dr. Jawad, she went on to set up the Katie Piper Foundation to help burn victims).

Turning PointThe experience was a turning point in Dr. Jawad’s career. Soon he would find himself helping women in Pakistan who were victims of acid attacks.

Exuberant at the Oscar win, he urges every-one to look at the concerns exhibited by the

film as an opportunity to tackle a serious issue. “I will encourage people to help iden-tify weaknesses in [Pakistan’s] society and find solutions. We must rise to such issues, learn, resolve and move on.”

The mood at the Oscars for Saving Face he says was of hope, encouragement and empowerment for women in Pakistan. “Sharmeen’s message was loud and clear, and very powerful.”

The idea of projects like Saving Face he says is not, as some critics have pointed out, to brand a whole society but to identify an issue, address it and show some great results. “We all have to first acknowledge that we do have a problem in some parts of society,” he says. “It’s not a part of a national identity. It’s a man-made disease. We need to have preven-tion, legislation, restoration, state-support and psychological rehabilitation.”

His emotional attachment to Pakistan is deep and strong and he says it is important to par-ticipate in the transfer of skills so the country can benefit from contemporary knowledge base. The process, he believes, should be a sustained one. “I benefited from state-spon-sored, almost free graduate education. It pro-vided me the platform to build my career.”

He rues the issue of brain drain and says he would like to see the knowledge circulate back to Pakistan. “The gap is getting wider and wider. We must address this together as a society. How best can we overcome our short-comings?” Many people, he says, are doing it in individual way. “I plan to get them together on a platform in a more sustainable and verifi-able way so we can monitor the success of the skills transfer.” The euphoria of the Oscars is settling down. After this extraordinary

achievement, it’s time to get back into the operation theatre and pick up the scalpel again, he says. His unswerving pas-sion for reconstructing the hopes and dreams of his patients runs on a trajectory of its own. He may from time to time find another trajectory, powered by a blaze of fame like the recent one, crossing his own but his momentum is self-driven.

“Sometimes wishes and dreams come true,” he says, referencing his ambitions as a young surgeon who wanted to interact with the glamorous and glorious people if he took up plastic surgery. “I was amidst the most cele-brated and glamorous people in the world [for the Oscars].” But the dream realisation has another dimension to it. It also came true perhaps because, as he puts it, “it was part of an attempt in restoring the glory of the human spirit.”

(Reprinted through permission by Dr. Mohammad Ali Jawad)

A Surgeon Committed To A Stronger SocietyBeing in the world’s eye only makes Jawad more forthright with his incisive insightsBy Malavika Kamaraju


On a warm March afternoon in Rome, a 35 year old woman leaps to her death from her sixth floor apartment. The news of her death is covered by the Italian media for a few days and is then quickly forgotten. Thousands of miles away her family in Pakistan prepare to repatri-ate her remains to her homeland where she is interred. Not much of a fuss is made in Pakistan, except in some media outlets and the blogosphere where her tragedy is highlighted and the incidence is soon forgotten. After all why would the chattering classes concern themselves with the suicide of a courtesan?Thirteen years before her death when she was 18 Fakhra Younas (the suicide victim) lived and worked in Bulbul Bazaar, in Karachi’s red light district of Napier road and like many of her fellow courtesans she earned a livelihood from mujras (dance) and entertaining Pakistani men, mostly the rich and the power-ful, including the political feudal elite who occupy the moral high ground in Pakistani society. Amongst her admirers was a man called Bilal Khar, MP from Muzzafargarh and scion of one of the most powerful dynastic political feudal families of the Punjab. His father Ghulam Mustafa Khar was an ex-gover-nor of the Punjab and his cousin Hina Rabbani Khar is the current Pakistani Foreign Minister in Zardari’s cabinet. The young besotted Khar soon married Fakhra and once his initial infatuation was satisfied the mar-riage soured, resulting in domestic abuse and torture and eventually divorce. Fakhra moved in with her mother along with her five year old son from a previous relationship. The feudal Pakistani man finds it hard to accept rejection and with encouragement and tacit acceptance by their own families, some-times ironically including their mothers and sisters and by mullahs who sanction violence and domestic abuse, justifying it by their interpretation of Quranic injunctions on

chastising wives, often resorts to extreme acts of violence on the woman who spurns his affections or whom he deems has brought his “izzat” into disrepute. One morning there was a knock on Fakhra’s door and when she opened it a man threw a liquid on her face. Her five year old son witnessed the attack. She describes these events in her autobiogra-phy “Il Volto Cancellato” (The Erased Face). The liquid was a corrosive acid which muti-lated her face severely. Although she survived the attack, she had to spend many months in intensive care. Her alleged attacker, Bilal Khar, used his family and political influence to get the charges dropped and Fakhra embarked on a journey of suffering and pain.Fakhra Younus was helped by Ghulam Mustafa Khar’s ex wife and women’s right activist Tehmina Durrani, who wrote a book, My Feudal Lord, a damning indictment which exposes the brutality towards women of the male and mullah dominated Pakistani Muslim society. She arranged for Fakhra to receive asylum in Italy, where with the help of charitable organisations Fakhra received sup-port and surgical treatment. One of her doctors was quoted as saying, “I may have healed her physical wounds some-what but her spirit will never be healed”. Tehmina Durrani, in the Pakistani news site News Daily wrote, “At the young age of 22 an acid attack left her only marginally alive, her horrific mutilation disfigured her so com-pletely that she was now confronted by open disgust and contempt by everyone who set eyes on her in Pakistan. She also became a lia-bility to her own family for whom she was once a source of income.“I have met many acid victims. Never have I seen one as completely disfigured as Fakhra. She had not just become faceless; her body had also melted to the bone. Despite her stark and hopeless condition, the government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was not in the least God-fearing. She was provided noth-ing . . . but disdain . . . and trashed.”According to the women’s organisation, Aurat Foundation, in 2011 there were 8,500 acts of acid throwing, forced underage marriage and severe domestic abuse on women in Pakistan.

This is most likely to be an underestimate as many women for fear of reprisals and per-ceived shame fail to muster courage to report these cases. Despite her suffering, Fakhra continued for a few years to defy her attacker and struggled to survive with her disfigurement and pain. Her country introduced a new law ensuring maxi-mum imprisonment for perpetrators of acid attacks and she continued to believe that one day her attacker would be brought to justice.A month before Fakhra’s violent death the Pakistani/ Canadian film maker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy was given an Oscar Award for her documentary Saving Face, which describes the plight of Pakistani acid attack victims and the charitable work of a UK based Pakistani doctor, Mohammad Ali Jawwad who has treated some of these women. It was hailed as a great Pakistani suc-cess and ironically even the Birkin bag carry-ing foreign minister, the cousin of Bilal Khar honoured Chinoy for her work. Before her tragic death, Fakhra expressed concern that her case had not been highlighted by Chinoy.The film Saving Face has received deserved international acclaim for highlighting the plight of Pakistani women, not that the world needed reminding of their suffering, but win-ning the Oscar raises some uncomfortable questions for Pakistanis. Should they be cele-brating the award as has been seen in popular media or should they hang their collective heads in shame? I for one belong to the latter category. I do not know what the designer clothes clad Hina Rabbani Khar feels towards her cousin, perhaps deep down she hates or even fears him, and frankly I do not care. But seeing her smiling with head held high while awarding an honour to Chinoy made me feel a tad ashamed of being associated with Pakistan. Perhaps Chinoy’s stature would have increased had she refused the honour from someone so closely associated with Fakhra’s tormentor.And will all the publicity surrounding the film help bring Fakhra’s attacker to justice and end this vile crime in Pakistan? I doubt it very much. That would first require extensive sur-gery on the corroded, disfigured face of Pakistani society.

Saving FacePakistan’s Fame Or Pakistan’s ShameIzhar Khan, MBBS, MRCP


cancer cells. I never thought of tainted heart before. The risk of course was high chance of cancer in Tiger under all the medicine he will receive to prevent his body to reject his new heart. Susan could not fathom the issue at hand. Her fiancée lay heartless on heart lung machine, a temporary machine that support the heart but kills blood cells and with each passing hour damages every fiber of his being. The moment froze my reasoning ability. I felt the unfairness of it all. Susan was absolutely right. This was not fair. I remember walking to the theater and let the surgeon know of the decision.

He looked happy. With controlled voice he said yes and kissed his new bride Susan. He turned to me and gave me a big embrace. I could feel his new heart zapping away in excitement full of life and an incredible rhythm. I had to tell him the Trojan cancer that came with his new heart. He was so happy he probably paid no attention to me. His successful marriage saw many heart rejec-tions but he survived all to see his son made it to high school.

This time it was different. He was short of breath and occasionally would cough up a crimson stain. I knew it as soon as I saw the polka dot sprinkled x ray of his chest. The anti rejection medicines facilitated a mush-room of growths in his body. I shook his hand and broke the news to him. Susan started sob-bing while he consoled her. This is unfair as Susan broke the silence. Her words had a strange déjà vu resonance to it. I looked in his eyes and saw that there was no fight in them, he smiled and thanked my team and planned to return to Lacombe Mississippi, his quaint town by the river.

The fighter in Mr. Tiger Man had changed with a change in his heart. May be I should pushed more for a grand finale but he knew better.

I looked in to mend the tear in me and looked skywards, speachless.

We will miss you Tiger man!

squeezed my hand and held it for a minute longer forcing me to look in his eyes and reas-sure him that we knew what we were doing, at least for then. The world of transplant cardi-ology is a microcosm of intense relationship between physicians and transplant candidates. Sometimes we become part of their personal lives at levels, uncomfortable at time.

I distinctly recall when Mr. Tiger took a turn for the worse and an intraaortic balloon pump was placed to help his heart. He was tied to the bed so as to keep the cords of the pump aligned. I could see his lips blue and quivering with blanched face as if all the blood is drained off him. He smiled with effort and looked at me with those imploring eyes. I was helpless. The last fibers of his heart were stretched to limit and I hoped that machine pump would allow him much needed rest.

He survived for the next month and half, the longest balloon pump support a patient could have. He lost a lot of weight and some of the tattoos changed shape. His fiancé, Susan stayed with him day in and day out. I do not know how many times she brought snacks for my team and shared coffee with me on those nights of constant weight and everlasting hope. She somehow had an unwavering con-viction that Tiger would make it.

His eyes lit up like a little kid on seeing a new toy. He yelped on the news of a donor heart. The morning was bright as we prepared Tiger for transplant. He would not stop talking all day and the all preparation went well till that evening.

This is not fair doctor. You cannot do this to me and him. She was crying incessantly repeat-ing the same lines. I do not think that they were addressed to me. I was holding her hand and trying to come to a decision. The donor heart was good but we were informed late after his heart was removed from his chest that renal cancer was found in the vein next to the donor heart. The renal cancer in the vein next to the heart implied that the heart was tainted with

“This is not fair, doctor.” I stood next to her, holding her cold trembling hand. My voice was shaking trying to undo the unfairness of it all. Her fiancé, Mr. Tiger Man, was in the operat-ing theater with his chest open. His broken heart harvested in a sac of saline. He lay dead except for the heart lung machine doing the circulation. His new heart, donated by a kind soul, lay in another saline filled sac on ice.

Tiger man had a unique persona. Heavy set, long salt and pepper hair and a plethora of ink on his back and shoulders. He was called Tiger Man because he was bitten by a tiger many moons past while he was lion fighter in a circus. He was a unique heart transplant waiting list candidate just like the unique situ-ation today. A soft spoken burly, broad chested gentlemen slowly dying as his heart grew weaker when he came to my service five months ago. The intermittent treatments failed and he was listed on top for heart trans-plant for his worsening symptoms. He was on industrial strength heart medicines to keep pumping the last drops of blood into his body and out of his lungs. His heart was like a large sac with leaking fountains, all in the wrong places. Sometimes I wondered how the God scientist designed the system with such intri-cacies of fluid dynamics.

I had assured him that we will get a heart for him so that he can marry his sweat heart post transplant and see his 11 year old make it to college. He had promised me that I would be his best man. His ulterior motive was to have his heart doctor next to him in case the new ticker gets overwhelmed with the site of his bride. I said it would be my honor. He

Tiger Man – Change Of HeartFurrukh Sayyer Malik, MD, FACC


Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) high-lights the duty of all Member States of the United Nations to uphold and protect these rights and affirms that the international com-munity recognizes the “dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women.” The UDHR states that no Member State shall make any distinction of persons on the basis of sex or nationality. The UDHR further states that, under the premise of equality of men and women, no person shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment and all persons are entitled to equal protection under the law. The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) provides specific legal mandates for the prin-ciples set out in the UDHR regarding the rights of women. Ratified by 185 states, CEDAW is the most comprehensive and authoritative international agreement on the fundamental rights of women. Unlike the UDHR, CEDAW is a treaty and is therefore a legally binding instrument on all parties. Pakistan has acceded to the treaty and is therefore legally bound to its provisions. The United States is a signatory but has not rati-fied the treaty. The European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of South Africa have relied on CEDAW for adjudication on issues regarding women’s rights.

Under Article 2 of CEDAW, State parties have the overall duty of undertaking all appropriate policy measures to eliminate dis-criminatory practices against women in all forms and without any delay. Article 2 man-dates key provisions for the purpose of elimi-nation discrimination against women. First, states must include in their national constitu-tions and through legislation both anti-dis-criminatory and affirmative laws that promote equality between men and women and ensure that these laws are carried out. Second, states must adopt appropriate laws to eliminate dis-crimination against women. Third, states have the duty to establish equal legal protection of

Terror. Not only is it nearly impossible to find statistical data on the number of women affected by the conflict that began in Afghanistan and has now bled over to the tribal areas of Pakistan, but few efforts have been made to provide systematic or targeted aid to them. According to piecemeal reports complied by International Aid Agencies like UNIFEM and the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 60% of the approximate 2.5 million people displaced by the conflict are women . Many have been forced into marriages and many also into beggary and prostitution.

The internally displaced women whose plight is described above ironically represent the most visible toll that the ongoing conflict has taken on Pakistani women. Since direct causal relations can be established between the women in the camps fleeing villages with burnt schools and off-limit bazaars these women, swathed in their burqas are the image of the female cost of the conflict. Even lesser attention is being paid to the more complex conglomeration of existing tribal customs, strategic choices made by Pakistani and NATO forced to defeat the Taliban and the failure of the Pakistani state to take seriously the ever deteriorating impact of a culture of violence on the most vulnerable of their pop-ulation. Pakistani authorities both democratic and military have not only failed to pursue legal avenues of truly empowering women but have in some cases chosen to give public prominence and rewards to perpetrators of heinous crimes against women. Finally, the United States a key player in the region has failed in both the construction of its military strategies as well as the structure of its aid dis-bursements failed to prioritize or even con-sider their impact on Pakistani women. Pakistan and the United States Have the Duty to Uphold and Defend the Rights of Women

The rights of women to be equally and justly treated under national law and practice are fundamental norms under international and domestic legal systems. The Universal

Introduction & PurposeThis report seeks to highlight the impact of the war on terror on Pakistani women. According to statistics compiled by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, there has been a 237% increase in incidents of sex-ual violence in Pakistan in the past eight years. These years have also coincided with the War on Terror in Pakistan. This report seeks thus to draw attention to the failure of both the Pakistani Government and foreign donors to the plight of Pakistani women who in addition to the burdens of patriarchal tribal practices and growing religious fundamental-ism now also face the brunt of displacement caused by ongoing operations in the North and north-west.

Direct Casualties Of The War On TerrorPakistan’s internally displaced women

Sakina Bibi and Gul Begum had never been to the market before in their lives. The forty-year old Sakina and her daughter in law finally made it out of the tent that had been supplied to them in the camp outside Karachi when their seven children ran out of food. They had a hundred rupees between them and fifty were taken by the rickshaw driver who took them to the market. They had to rely on the shopkeeper for correct change because nei-ther of them could read or write and had not dealt with currency before. The two women are among the hundreds of thousands of dis-placed who fled their villages in the north and made their way to camps in the South. In their case, the men had sent them ahead while choosing to stay to guard the family property, which they thought would be taken over if they were not there to occupy it.

These women, part of the hundreds of thou-sands of displaced that have been seeking shelter in camps and relatives houses since the onset of fighting between security forces and Taliban militants in 2004, represent the most ignored constituency in the War on

The War On WomenTerror, Tribes & Pakistan’s Ignored Casualties

WAPPNA Report


c) Failure of U.S. strategy to consider the welfare of Pakistani women in aid dis-bursements and strategic initiatives

In addition to the impact of the ongoing con-flict, the weight of patriarchal tradition and the lack of political will at the hands of both civil-ian and military governments, Pakistan’s women have also been ignored in the strategiz-ing of United States and NATO forces in the region. One overt example of this has been the prominence given to the use of tribal lashkars or militias in the effort to fighting the Taliban. The organization of these lashkars has fol-lowed a model similar to that used in Iraq which empowers local tribes and even arms them against the Taliban. What is left unad-dressed is the reality that empowering local tribal structures, many of whom have been promoting the sequestering of females as well as the exchange of women to settle debts and disputes in a brutal blow to efforts to empower them. Empowering tribal laws and customs, which have been subjugating these women for centuries refuses to allow them opportunities for education, the chance to choose their life partner, to prevent unwanted pregnancies and leaves them caught in an endless cycle of birth-ing children often at the cost of their own lives. As per estimates women in Pakistan, especially in the tribal region have the highest illiteracy and maternal mortality rate in the whole region. Add to this estimated rate of sexual assault and you have a macabre reality of hun-dreds of women dying in childbirth or being raped every day.

Finally, U.S. aid disbursements to Pakistan, increasingly such an integral part of Pakistan’s economy have failed to make any particular provision to assist Pakistani women caught in the conflict and left without recourse. The “Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act 2009” which set disbursement amounts of 750 million dollars a year for various eco-nomic and development projects in Pakistan made no mention of women’s issues in the Act itself. Despite the escalating rate of sexual violence faced by Pakistani women caught in a conflict torn region, the Act allowed for no construction of shelters, women’s health cen-ters and created no basis requiring the Pakistani Government to take any develop-ment, legal or public education efforts to curb

International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

Conflict & The Most UnprotectedPakistan’s Women Attacked From All Sides

1.Escalating use of violence against women as a means to settle scores and vendettas.

Violence against women has historically been and continues to be a debilitating problem in Pakistan. According to reports compiled by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, in the last eighteen months alone 808 gang rapes were reported in the country. The majority of victims were raped by groups of three or more men and then killed by imme-diate relatives. This astounding number becomes even more chilling when one con-siders the fact that the numbers compiled by the HRCP are based on newspaper clippings of reported cases; which statistically make up only a third of actual cases. The reason why the number of gang rapes is significant is because it shows a communal component to the brutalization of women that is proxi-mately, if not directly, related to the ongoing civil war on the country. Failure of both mil-itary and democratic regimes to change laws that discriminate against women and the cost pursuing strategies of appease-ment against the Taliban.

Changing regimes whether democratic or military have neither paid attention to the ignored plight of women caught in a conflict ridden society but have instead promoted what are termed as “pragmatic” .

The much touted Women’s Protection Bill passed in 2006 gave only lip service and failed to repeal the Zina and Hudood Ordinances. Furthermore, in changing evidentiary require-ments it put the onus on the woman saying that she would have to produce four wit-nesses to the act in bringing a charge of rape against a person. Tribal customs like vani (a form of honor killing) continued to remain in place even after the Bill’s passage. Indeed according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan nearly 1100 women were killed in 2008. Of these 183 were axed to death, 30 were brutally tortured. Nearly a quarter of the women belonged to minority groups and was particularly targeted for this reason and about 80 of them were minors.

women’s rights and establish adequate public institutions to enforce these protections. Fourth, states have a duty to refrain from affirmatively discriminating against women, such as through laws or official practice, and a duty to ensure that public officials do not do so. Fifth, states are bound to take all measures to prevent discrimination of women by any organization or enterprise, such as religious or resistance groups. Sixth, states must abolish all laws, customs, and practices that constitute discrimination against women. Finally, states must repeal all discriminatory penal provi-sions. Article 10 imposes on states the duty to provide equal access and opportunities for education, which includes fair and equal stan-dards of quality of education. Women also have the right to equal employment opportu-nities and conditions (Article 11), health care access (Article 12), and overall economic well-being (Article 13). In particular, states must modify their practices for the special hardships that women in rural areas undergo in regards to employment and economic sur-vival.

Although respect of sovereignty and culture are important under international law, severe violations of women’s rights, as outlined in this report, are explicitly prohibited regardless of interests of culture. CEDAW Article 5 imposes on states the duty to take appropriate measures to change cultural patterns of behavior that are discriminatory against women. Also, although Article 27 of the ICCPR protects the rights of minorities to practice their own culture and religion, Article 5 states that “There shall be no restric-tion upon or derogation from any of the fun-damental rights recognized or existing in any State party to the present Covenant pursuant to law, conventions, regulations, or custom on the pretext that the present Covenant does not recognize such rights or recognizes them to a lesser extent” (italics added). This means that, despite the fact that women’s rights are not specifically mentioned in the ICCPR but minority rights are mentioned, interests of preserving minority culture do not allow members of a minority group to violate fun-damental women’s rights, such as the right to be free from cruel and degrading treatment. This same provision is present in regards to cultural rights of minorities in Article 5 of the


for band-aid approach is long past. Here is my humble proposal.

Constitute a Blue Ribbon Commission com-prising a few non-partisan founding members and representatives of affiliated Alumni groups to look into current practices and rec-ommend meaningful reforms.

In order for any such effort to succeed, the current officers and the Council would have to be on board and commit to accept and enforce Commission’s recommendations.

I wonder if there is a will to take a holiday from corrosive politics and do something positive and meaningful for the future of APPNA.

Dr. Sayed Amjad Hussain is an emeritus profes-sor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Toledo, Dr. Amjad Hussain is a founding mem-ber of APPNA and served as its 4th president in 1982. He is the author of 13 Urdu and English books on history, culture, religion and interna-tional relations, including a book on the history of APPNA (APPNA Qissa 2004). He is a

regular columnist on the op-ed pages of daily Toledo Blade and daily Aaj of Peshawar.

In 2009 the University of Toledo recognized him by the establishing an endowed professorship in cardiothoracic surgery in his name. The univer-sity also has a visiting professorship in the his-tory of medicine that bears his name.

Dr. Amjad Hussain is a1962 graduate of Khyber Medical College and holds emeritus pro-fessorships in Khyber Medical College and in Khyber Medical University, Peshawar. He is also a past president of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo.

APPNA Qissa, APPNA Qazzia (Continued from page 19)

this year. But unlike Manto, whose work required courage and who faced lawsuits by puritans who were offended by his writing, Akhtar is likely to find a ready audience in his homeland, primed to expect the worst of these backward Muslims, and accepting him as the latest exotic first generation author on the scene. With his autobiographical first

novel out of the way, and having cleared his chest of his Pakistani/Desi baggage, one hopes that he turns his sharp insight and pen to tell the story of other seedy parts of his country, America: about unctuous pro-Lifers, racist Tea-partiers, pro-Israeli hawks, greedy Wall-streeters and the supercilious liberals who support intervention and drone attacks.

There is enough hypocrisy to go around, in this land of the free. If Akhtar is brave enough to tell these stories, then, and only then, will he be able to wear the mantle of “American Manto”.

American Dervish; 357 pages; Little, Brown & Company; $24.99

American Dervish (Continued from page 14)

2. Pending legislation directed toward empowering women should provide special disbursements to the women of Pakistan: Currently the International Violence Against Women Act sponsored by Senators Kerry and Lugar is set to be reintroduced in the House and Senate. The Bill seeks to make women’s empowerment a facet of the United States diplomatic agenda. As Pakistani-American women, we proudly support this Bill and hope that it becomes law. However, we hope that U.S. lawmakers will want to include Pakistan as one of the initial pilot projects proposed by the Bill with special funds directed toward the building of shelters and training of security forces in Pakistan on violence against women issues. This inclusion in IVAWA is of crucial importance because the women of Pakistan are the unseen casualties of the War on Terror and are paying the price of living in a conflict ridden society with their lives.

suicide because they have no recourse to any sort of assistance, this is particularly problematic in the case of female IDPs who have been displaced and have no access to legal, health or shelter assistance.

c. WAPPNA would be happy to collaborate with partners in the U.S. Government to provide assistance to women who because of cultural mores cannot avail health resources that are not women centered.

Directions For U.S. Policy1. U.S. lawmakers should be strongly critical

of any military strategy that seeks to empower the local tribal and feudal struc-ture without checks on the power of tribal chieftains and without an evaluation of the consequence of such policies to tribal women. Unless, this aspect of this strategy is highlighted Pakistani women will con-tinue to suffer without any recourse and U.S. taxpayer dollars will be complicit in their suffering.

the onslaught against Pakistani women. In failing to do so, it reiterated once again the position that the welfare of Pakistani women suffering silently under the cumulative weight of suicide bombings, honor killings and con-certed efforts to render them invisible is sim-ply not an issue worthy of attention.

RecommendationsBased on the above, the Women’s Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America would recommend the following”

a. Special Aid Disbursements that are directed to be used for women affected by the con-flict and not part of development or mili-tary aid. One avenue for this would be to fund special projects through the International Violence Against Women Act currently in Congress.

b. A 24/7 National Crisis Helpline for Pakistani women: Nearly 70% of Pakistani female victims of sexual assault commit


Committee Reports

On May 17, 2012 the APPNA Literary Award Committee held its tele-conference and it was unanimously decided to honor an illus-trious APPNA member with this prestigious award for year 2012. The APPNA commu-

nity is quite familiar with this illustrious APPNA member…Dr. Syed Amjad Hussain of Toledo, Ohio. His citation reads as follows:

In a profile published in The Herald Magazine in August 2003, Dr. Amjad Hussain was introduced as the jack-of-all-trades and master of many. While assessing his accomplishments one has difficulty in draw-ing a circle around this multifaceted man. One thing however is clear. Through his myriad accomplishments this prodigious son of the soil has made Pakistan, his country Pakistan very proud.

During his student life at Islamia College, Peshawar and later at Khyber Medical College, he served as editor of the Urdu sections of college literary magazines. In addition he wrote stage plays and pro-duced University Magazine program at Radio Pakistan, Peshawar where he was also a playwright and drama voice.

After graduation with distinction from Khyber Medical College, he appeared in Urdu Honors examination (Adib Aalam) and topped the list.

In the United States Dr. Amjad was trained as a general surgeon and a thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon. In 1970 he returned to Peshawar and served on the faculty of Khyber Medical College for three years and started cardiac surgery at Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar. Because of reasons beyond his control, he returned to the U.S. but has since then made annual trips to his alma mater to teach.

In the U.S. he pursued the twin-tracks of academic surgery and private practice. He rose through the ranks at the Medical University of Ohio and in 1987 attained the rank of a clinical professor. Since his retire-ment from the practice of surgery in 2004 he was elevated to the status of Professor Emeritus. His other significant professional activities included presidency of the Toledo Surgical Society and the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA) of whom he is a founding member. In 1982 he served on the Health Policy Panel of the Government of Pakistan to formulate country’s 5-year health plan. In 2000 he served as 140th president of the Academy of Medicine of Toledo and Lucas County. He is the author of seventy scientific papers in American and international medical lit-erature.

His professional accomplishments however tell but part of his interests and accomplishments. Dr. Amjad has also been active in the fields of community service, literature, exploration, photography, journalism and philanthropy.

At the community level he has helped built one of the largest Islamic Center in Toledo, Ohio and has led the Center as president for 6 years. Built in 1982 the Center has been in the forefront of interfaith dialogue and is known for its progressive outlook. For over 25 years he has lent his pen and his voice to introduce moderate and progressive Islam to his American audience through his writing and his public speaking.

As an explorer he has, since 1987, explored and photographed the entire length of the Indus River in Pakistan. In the summer of 1996 his Team Indus explored the river at its origin in the Kailas Mountains in western Tibet. They were the third group in history to lay claim to that distinction. The accomplishments of Team Indus were entered in the U.S. Congressional Record and an hour long documentary of the expe-dition, “Indus River: Journey of a lifetime”, was shown nationally by Public Broadcasting Television in America. Dr. Amjad’s photographic work has appeared on the covers of 16 magazines and has also appeared in various calendars.

In addition to writing for a number of publications in the U.S. and Pakistan, he has been writing for The Blade, the daily newspaper in northwest Ohio and southern Michigan, for over twenty-six years and for the past 18 years he has written a biweekly opinion column on the op-ed pages of The Blade.

Dr. Amjad Hussain is the author of seven English and seven Urdu books on as varied a subject as culture, religion, history and international rela-tions. He has contributed chapters to three additional books in English.

His 1995 Urdu book Yuk Sheher-e-Arzoo won the Abasin Literary Gold Medal. His other Urdu books include Mitti ka Qarz, Aalam MeiN Intikhab- Peshawar, ChitaN Wala Katora, Shehwani Urdu Shairi, Dare Maktab and Bhakri Manzil. Because of his myriad services to the city of his birth in the area of literature, the citizens and literati of Peshawar City bestowed the title of Baba-e-Peshawar on him in 1996.

In addition to the above, he continues his other pastimes of playing squash racquets, Urdu and English calligraphy, and collecting old manu-scripts.

In recognition of his ongoing services to the College he was recognized with a special Gold Medal during the 1997 convocation of the College. At the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of the College in 1980 the students named him the Most Admired Graduate of the College. The students also dedicated 1992-93 issue of Cenna- college literary magazine- in his honor. In 2005 Khyber Medical College awarded him Lifetime Achievement Award and declare him to be the best graduate of the col-lege. This year the college named a Clinical Skills Center in his name.

In 2009 the University of Toledo created a professorship in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery in his name and established a visiting pro-fessorship in the history of medicine that carries his name.

APPNA Annual Literary Award CommitteeAsaf A Dar, MD, Chair, Annual Literary Award Committee


Committee Reports

It is a pleasure to serve as the chair for the young physician committee for the current year. We have accomplished few tasks this year and looking forward to achieve more goals. The committee began with no budget but with the help of the leadership and the

members, we continue to show improvement in managing the affairs. I would like to discuss few tasks which we are currently working on.

The website which was established during the previous years was revi-talized. A young physician can get lots of information regarding the accommodation research and observer ship. They can also find a men-tor ship information in addition to the above.

The CYP is working on a research competition during the summer convention and the information regarding this has been send to the members. We believe this will bring a prestige to APPNA in Academia.

The CYP is in collaboration with Advocacy Committee trying to expedite the visa clearance process. We had a very informative meeting with the representative of the state department during APPNA spring meeting. In the wake of the meeting we are forwarding the particulars of the candidates who have matched in the residency programs to the state department so the background check and clearance process can begin in advance. I still believe that there is lot of work need to be done on this front. The challenges faced by Pakistani young physicians are enormous. Pakistani graduates don’t get the enough interviews for the residency and if they are matched then they have an uphill task of getting visa or security clearance. There are many instances in which

Committee for Young PhysiciansJalil Khan, MD, Chair Committee of Young Physicians

the candidates were unable to start the program on time and have set up a bad precedence for the future Pakistani young physicians. The residency programs are hesitant in giving interviews to Pakistani grad-uates. This is one of the challenges that membership at large and lead-ership have to tackle and to develop a strategy to inform the residency program directors of the abilities of Pakistani graduates. We also requested the state department to send a memorandum to all the Residency programs stating that Pakistani graduates should not be dis-criminated based on the Visa situations. The state department has assured and has been working on to establish a fast track security clearance program for the Pakistani physicians.

APPNA was able to open 4 accommodation units in Detroit area. One exclusively is dedicated to the young women physicians who are doing Observer ship or interviews. We appreciate KEMCAANA, WAPPNA, Dr. Nasir Qureshi and Dr. Muhammad Suleman for sponsoring the units. We would like for the respective chapter to be actively involve in managing the units so the process should be continued for the years to come.

Our APPNA house in New York is also fully functional and accommo-dating many young physicians.

Committee for young physicians is active in helping the young gradu-ates of Pakistani origin. However we would like the membership at large to come forward to help and guide these graduates. These gradu-ates need lots of encouragement mentors hip and research opportuni-ties to stay competitive for the residency programs.

We would welcome all the suggestions and comments that would help us in improving our abilities.

Research, Education & Scientific Affairs CommitteeAyaz M. Samadani, MD, Chair RESA

The Research, Education and Scientific Affairs Committee (RESA) committee has reviewed eight activities that were presented since March of this year. APPNA’s CME pro-grams are geared towards diverse attendees. The CME host committee has produced an

excellent choice of topics that meet attendees’ needs and fulfill the identified gaps in the practice of medicine. RESA’s aim is to encourage our members to benefit from the CME programs. The CME activities were presented in several states in the United States and abroad. Your feedback is important to us for future improvement in our programs and to help meet our established goals. I request you to respond fully to the post-presentation surveys. Your input is necessary to meet our Mission statement.

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) sets and enforces standards in physician continuing educa-tion. The RESA committee has submitted the required first CME activity report to ACCME that was due in March, our second report will be submitted in July this year.

Please participate in the educational activities and respond by writing your comments in the post activity surveys in a timely fashion. .

Your Research, Education and Scientific Affairs Committee (RESA) and the Committee for Young Physicians (CYP) are happy to announce the annual Student/Resident/Fellow research competition this year. I hope you enjoy the CME activities that are prepared for your interest.


Committee Reports

One of the primary focuses of APPNA and President Dr. Saima Zafar this year is to be in the forefront of helping local communities thru community projects. As physicians, pro-viding medical care comes naturally and APPNA clinics can provide a platform to ini-

tiate and grow programs geared towards community health education and prevention. The goal of the ad hoc Committee for APPNA Free Clinics is to bring this vision to fruition with a multi-prong approach collaborating with existing community clinics, on one hand, and establishing new clinics, on the other.

In this regard, the Committee will develop and share with APPNA local chapter leaders our expertise and experience in organization and infrastructure planning, health board certifications, liability insurance coverage, volunteer staff recruitment, medical policy and procedure guidelines, financial strategies, and practice management. The Committee, with support from the central APPNA EC, will help pro-vide resources for ongoing expenses of APPNA Free Clinics.

With the assistance of our advisor, Dr. Nasar Qureshi, and Co-Chairs, Drs. Mujtaba Qazi and Azam Kundi, this Committee is already off to a

This is a relatively new stand alone committee which was approved by the APPNA council in fall 2010 meeting in Miami.

This committee was formed in response to a very real and urgent need for APPNA to be better prepared and organized to deal with natural and man made disasters, nationally and Internationally, hence fulfilling a long felt need for APPNA to take its rightful place in the important field of disaster response.

The purpose of this committee is two fold:

1. Have an organized and well funded entity within APPNA which will be able to respond to disasters in a time and cost effective man-ner.

2. Form important liaisons with other similar national & international professional organizations which will help foster co operation in the realm of disaster response & bring APPNA to forefront of disaster response

Towards this end this committee was revived earlier in the year by Saima Zafar.

great start. Work is already under way to compile an APPNA Clinic manual that will include information and resources to start a clinic, such as a revised CABL template for the clinics.

The Committee has sent out surveys to the APPNA local chapter presidents for their feed back in regards to a free clinic. We are compil-ing a list of existing clinics, whether they are under the umbrella of APPNA or other governing bodies. There are APPNA free clinics being started in Johnson City, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Committee is working through the Bureau of Primary Health Care to provide free malpractice insurance to all the volunteer doctors.

The Committee is also in the process of organizing the APPNA CARES & CLINIC Day to be held this year on September 15, where APPNA local chapters will coordinate free health screenings, and free flu vaccinations for their local communities.

Respectfully submitted, Nadeem Ahmed, MD, Chair St. Louis, Missouri

So far the committee has had several meetings among its members . The committee has created an algorithm of preparedeness & response.The committee is in the process of collecting names of volunteers from amongst APPNA members who will be placed in a permanent roster and henceforth will be called upon to volunteer their time and resources as the need arises. We are also currently talking to various nationally known organizations for developing partnerships for joint responces. The committee will then come up with a plan to have some funds at its disposal which can become available rather urgently as needed.

The committee has also decided that in order to ensure continuity and hence quality among its ranks each member will serve terms of 1,2 3,4 & 5 years. Thus each year there will be attrition of no more than one member only.

We are all looking for further help and co operation from all APPNA members.

Thank you

Umair Shah (Chair), Naheed Choudhry (Cochair), Humeraa Qamar, Sarwat Iqbal, Shaheen Mian, Afzal Arain, Jaleel Khan, Fozia Rana

Adhoc Committee For APPNA Free ClinicsNadeem Ahmed MD

Disaster Relief Committee


Committee Reports

As Chairman of APPNA’s Advocacy and Legislative Affairs Committee, I have been doing my best along with the efforts of my Committee, to uphold the responsibilities of our Committee and uphold the cause of APPNA. We have been having regularly

scheduled teleconferences to address and plan to reach our goals and objectives.

The goals of and objectives of the Advocacy and Legislative Affairs Committee are as follows:

• ThisCommitteewillservetoprovideAPPNAanditsmembershipguidance and management with respect to the advocacy, legislative and government affairs in the United States, which may have an impact on the organization and its membership.

• ThisCommitteewilladdressissuesofconcerntotheAPPNAmem-bers, such as:

a. Preservation of Civil rights and liberties in the United States. b. Immigration related issues, especially with respect to new physi-

cians coming to the United States. c. Professional/practice issues. d. Developing understanding and working relationship to promote

good will and understanding with other strategic organizations. e. Other relevant issues.

We are working to organize APPNA’s annual Day on the Hill. As the Summer Meeting will be taking place in Washington, D.C. we were hoping to organize a Day on the Hill during the meeting, however, Congress will not be in session during that time. We are working to organize a Day on the Hill for 2012 and will keep our membership informed about it.

As promised, we are continuing to work on the young physicians’ visa issues with all concerned governmental parties. The Chair of the Committee for Young Physicians, Dr. Jalil Khan, has worked very closely with us to help convey all the information we receive to the young physicians through his Committee’s webpage. We encourage our membership to be proactive in regards to this issue with their local legislation. Through active voices we can raise awareness and hope-fully make significant progress.

We are also working on a report to publish the demographic data on applicants who secured residency spots this year. This report will be made available to both the YPC and our Committee as well as for-warded to governmental agencies for analysis and to help in the future. We ask any and all young physicians who faced difficulties with the visa process this year to get in touch with us so we can gather the nec-essary information and use it in the future as well as assist in any was possible.

I would like to request you, the APPNA membership, to please help us in achieving the aforementioned goals of the Advocacy and Legislative Affairs Committee. Please be proactive and reach out to your local leg-islators for the advocacy of Pakistan and physicians. Your suggestions, feedback, and comments are welcomed and appreciated.

It is a pleasure serving you as Chairman of the Advocacy and Legislative Affairs Committee and I look forward to continuing to serve you.

Best Regards, Members Manzoor Tariq, MD, Chairman Dr. Aamir Jama Abdul Rashid Piracha, MD, Cochair Dr. Anwar Masood Muslim Jami, MD, Cochair Dr. Fawad Zafar Dr. Naveed Chowhan Dr. Amjad Riar

Advocacy & Legislative Affairs CommitteeManzoor Tariq, Chairman

Welcome to the Summer 2012 APPNA Membership Committee report. This year’s Membership Committee (MC) comprises of Sajjad Savul as chair, Jamil Mohsin as cochair and the following members: Arif Ahmad, Rabia Awan, Bushra Cheema, Shaikh Hai,

Tariq Jamil, Munir Javed, Sohail Rana, Arshad Saeed, and Saima Shahid. The Committee has several members who bring in experience from serving on MC in recent years. The MC meets via teleconference, on a monthly basis. Minutes are kept and approved for each meeting.

At the beginning of the year, we aimed to double APPNA’s active membership in 2012. At the end of last year, of over 15000 Pakistani descent physicians in North America, only 2900 were members of

APPNA (including about 1500 annual and 1200 lifetime members). In March, MC initiated a Member-Get-A-Member campaign offering incentives to members who helped bring in new members. As of June 1st, our total membership was over 3200. This is the “first time in APPNA’s 35-year history that the membership has surpassed 3200 members!”

Every year, significant time and effort is exercised by APPNA Central staff and MC to verify a number of applicants on whether or not they meet voting eligibility criteria. In order to help facilitate the verifica-tion process, in January, a system-wide email was sent to help under-stand different membership categories and relevant timelines. The March 31st deadline to apply for membership with voting privileges was strictly followed.

Membership CommitteeSajjad A. Savul, MD


Committee Reports

In mid-March, in an effort to move towards eAPPNA (electronic APPNA), the Office Management Committee (OMC) transferred the existing membership data from iMIS system to the new InstantReg portal. Several shortcomings were encountered in the initial phase. Both MC and OMC worked in coordination to overcome these hur-dles. OMC Chair, Dr. Arif Agha, played a pivotal role in improving the APPNA portal. This data is a tremendous resource for APPNA, and will remain so in years to come.

In 2012, APPNA paid over $60,000 in service charges for all payments made to the association via credit cards. In January’s MC meeting, responding to a proposal by President Dr. Saima Zafar, a motion was unanimously approved, adding a 3% service charge to the credit card payments for APPNA membership dues. APPNA had already adopted this service charge for other payments made to the organization (except donations). Non-credit card payments are exempt from this service charge.

Membership Survey: To study the needs of member physicians, MC co-chair Dr. Jamil Mohsin conducted a membership survey. Over 200 APPNA physicians responded of which 90% were current members. The majority of respondents considered social interaction as the pri-mary reason for joining APPNA whereas charitable work was the sec-ond best reason. More than half of the respondents found APPNA related social networking as most rewarding. Other rewarding items

were class reunions, charitable opportunities, exposing children to Pakistani ambience and academic interactions. When asked about items relevant to increasing and retaining members, “Accountability/ transparency” was considered the most important (97%), whereas “Decreasing membership fee” as the least important (57%).

Post-Summer Meeting Agenda: By May 15, 2012, MC had held over six teleconference meetings. In addition, MC chair and co-chair met on several occasions. The extent of contact with APPNA office has been enormous. As much as 90% of time was spent on issues related to member verification for voting eligibility. Only a minority of time was dedicated to increasing membership (although with great suc-cess!) and benefiting membership needs. MC is working on proposals for better time utilization of its functions. This includes proposing changes to voting eligibility, modifying membership categories and further enhancing the member benefit package. MC welcomes ideas and suggestions from APPNA members.

Thank you for your time in reading this report. The Membership Committee team feels honored to be part of this very important APPNA committee.

Respectfully submitted, Sajjad A. Savul, MD Chair, Membership Committee 2012

OMC 2012 VisionThe OMC set two primary goals for 2012.• MakingAPPNAofficePaperless• Restructureandredesigntheofficeto

corporate standards.

Objective• Increaseefficiencyandproductivitybyeliminatingredundancies• Reduceoperatingcostsandoverheadsbyadoptingmodern

technology• Introducemembershipfriendlycentralofficeculture• Renovatetheoffice,compliantwithinternationalbuildingcode

(IBC)• UpgradeAPPNAClinictoamodelfacilitywithAmerican

Disability Act (ADA) compliance

Redundancies and InefficienciesOMC 2012 identified following areas of redundancies and inefficiencies. Membership and financial data was entered in triplicate manner which resulted in inaccuracies in financial reporting and consumed excessive man hours of labor with large overheads.

The overseas website support was flawed resulting in non-reliability of database. Reconciling of website transactions with in-house books was at disparity.Co-mingling of various revenue sources e.g., donations and other funds that resulted in misappropriation. Accountant was non-certified and overpriced. Office Building and APPNA Clinic were noted to be non-compliant with building codes .Employee contracts and standard operating procedures had not been updated for years. Office culture needed uplift with dress code and demeanor.Avoidable expenses in overnight shipping and wiring funds. Manual bank deposits were deemed old fashioned in present day technology. Travelling and accommodation expenses for ancillary consultants and staff were deemed redundant.

Launching E-APPNAE-APPNA was launched as the major project to overcome many of the above inefficiencies. When fully implemented, it will transform APPNA into a virtual, paperless office. Core features of E-APPNA include a database engine with Membership, CME, Donations and Event Management modules.

Office Management & Oversight CommitteeArif Agha, MD (Chair),Javed Imam, MD (Cochair), Aftab Khan, MD, Mansoor Alam, MD, Aisha Zafar, MD


Committee Reports

Membership Module Online membership applicationFacility to upload licenses and other supporting documents for membership reviewAuto-renewal notices and license expiration remindersSelf-service membership profile managementRemote membership verification by the Membership Committee Database Searches with various outputs for meaningful use

Continuing Medical Education (CME)Attendee Registration for CME programsSpeaker Registration with facility to upload abstracts/learning objectives as well as disclosures Online Evaluation of the speakers and programs Claiming CME credits, Credit Registry and CME certificatesACCME compliance for maintenance of accreditation and re-accreditationArchiving of Enduring CME Material

DonationsIndependent merchant account connected to new SWDRC Bank Account Instantaneous Online Tax Exempt Statement/receiptsRemote access to Donations module by SWDRC

Event ManagementOnline Meeting Registration Facility to Self-Edit Meeting RegistrationIntegration of Event Management with the Membership DashboardOnline and Onsite Badge And Ticket Printing Exhibitor Registration

Other Features of E-APPNA:An online Electronic Fax (E-fax) system has been implementedElectronic Check Scanning and deposits from the office has been implemented eliminating manual deposit slips.Electronic Fund Transfer (Tele-checking) option for dues payment, meeting registration and donations is under way (at the time of writing). It will reduce credit card transaction fees to the members and the association.OMC is reviewing electronic signature facility through E-Signature for validity and cost-effectiveness.

Challenges of ChangeMany challenges and natural resistance to the change were encountered. Volunteers were engaged to enter and update the membership data. Data is incomplete. Many life time members (119) have never provided their emails. 630 members share 315 emails addresses with their spouses. Members who have shared emails in this manner are requested to provide unique emails at [email protected]

There have been many anticipated glitches with login and registration which caused some undesirable difficulties. OMC wishes to thank the membership for their cooperation and patience.

Staff and PayrollAt present, office has 4 Full Time (FT) equivalent employees (one Administrator, one FT Admin Assistant, two part time assistants, one part-time CME coordinator and a part time book-keeper). During the transition to E-APPNA, there will be a temporary increase in the staff and payroll. When E-APPNA will be fully functional, APPNA office should be able to spare 1- 1 _ position equivalent. This could translate to $35,000 to $50,000 in annual savings (cumulatively nearly one half million over the next 10 years).

Banking and Revenue StreamliningFor better accounting, reconciliation and transparency, 7 bank accounts were opened at JP Morgan Chase as follows: General Operations, Donations, CME, Membership Dues, and Meetings (3 accounts; Summer/Winter meetings, Spring/Fall meeting and International Meetings). All revenues for these activities are collected through E-APPNA. Each of these revenue sources has a separate merchant account as well as Tele-checking electronic fund transfer account. All online activity will be exported to QuickBooks electronically from the third fiscal quarter. Access to Donations accounts has been provided to SWDRC for monitoring collections and disbursements.

Accounting and Book KeepingLicensed (verified) CPA and firm has been retained at 80% reduced cost than the previous year. A new external CPA audit firm has been retained at 40% lower rate than the last year.Financial software specific for non-profit organizations has been purchased and installed.

Budget, Targets and Savings:OMC aims to maintain the budget of 2011. There is a potential of slight increase to cross-train the new staff during the transition from the old to the new system. This will be more than offset by multitude of savings already enforced. OMC has been vigilant in reducing expenses by restraining non-judicious and indiscriminate use of overnight shipping (costing $30K in 2011). Better negotiations have saved more than $35000 in contracting certified public accountants and auditors. Office has also saved $16000 proposal of fixing the old website by managing the website in house.New revenues sources have been created by selling online advertisement at APPNA website. Credit card convenience fee will save the association more than $65,000 in 2012. Termination of redundant service contracts have saved in thousands. Collectively these numbers easily add up to far above $100,000.


APPNA Office RenovationOMC envisions that APPNA office should not only be technologically advanced but also physically appealing and inviting. An architect has been retained for this purpose. APPNA office will be converted to a state of the art facility to enhance image of APPNA. The council in its spring meeting 2012 has already approved the above remodeling.

APPNA ClinicAPPNA office also houses APPNA Clinic (Registered as APPNA Community Health Center with the state of IL). At present, the facility is ADA noncompliant. The above remodeling will also help improve compliance.

Note of ThanksOMC wishes to thank the President and the Executive Committee for entrusting us with responsibility of the central office. OMC is grateful to the membership for their patience and cooperation through the implementation of E-APPNA.I am personally indebted to the OMC members Drs. Javed Imam, Aftab Khan, Mansoor Alam and Dr. Aisha Zafar for their valuable contributions. I would also like to thank office staff Jennifer Wozniak, Denise Burt, Tina Cederborg, Joanne Walthius, Sidra Tul Muntaha, Gina Latarewicz and Maria Khan. And last but not least, special thanks are due to Mr. Hasan Tariq of IQVIS Technologies for making E-APPNA happen.

Committee Reports

The CABL committees of past years have done a lot of work in keeping the constitution and bylaws of the organization updated. There are several changes, which had been recommended and duly approved by two executive council meeting. Last year bylaws could not be passed secondary to the lack of quorum in the general body meeting and then attempt was made to get approval by mail, which was again unsuccessful.

The CABL committee met this year on the instruction of the presi-dent to make another attempt at approval of the amendments by mail ballots. The committee thoroughly discussed the amendments and agreed to make another attempt at approval of the bylaws by the mail ballot.

The brief summary of the amendments is as follows:

1. Auxiliary Organization. Section 5 relates to all auxiliary organiza-tions to organize and function under the APPNA constitution

2. Section 9 amendments clarifies the procedure and timeline for the constitution amendments as they are processed by the council

3. Section 12 amendments clarify the component organization struc-ture, tax Id and financial statements. The component organization will follow the APPNA Constitution and raise funds using APPNA ID. Submit financial statements yearly.

4. The section 13 amendment allows the executive council and not the president elect to verify credentials after receiving them from membership chair.

5. The section 19 amendments pertain to standing APPNA commit-tees and suggestion for staggered terms.

6. The section 20 amendments changes the calendar for the election and nomination process to move towards the fall APPNA meeting

7. The section 26 amendments clarify the process for constitution amendments and Timeline. It also lays down additional framework for mail ballot in case of failure to get 50% signatures of the membership for any such amendments.

8. Appendix A refers to procedures for recall of an officer

9. Appendix B relates the APPNA conflict of interest policy

The committee has decided that the deadline for the submission of ballot for approval is June 30, 2012. The committee has also decided that NO RESPONSE FROM THE MEMBER WILL BE CONSIDERED AS A “YES” RESPONSE.

The members will be receiving ballots soon in the mail. They will still have the opportunity to vote individually on the amendments or col-lectively. It is imperative for the membership to respond to this mail-ing to fulfill their fiduciary duty as a member. These changes are the need of the time for the Association to grow and move forward. The committee strongly feels that these amendments will be approved this time.

For the benefit of membership the amendments are printed in this journal along with a ballot for their convenience.

The Constitution And Bylaws Committee Mohammad Suleman, MD, Chair Farrukh Malik, MD, Vice Chair Mufiz Chauhan, MD Omar Nasib, MD Khalid Matin, MD Sabir Ali, MD

Constitution & Bylaws Committee


Committee Reports

Assalaam-Alaikum. APPNA has a rich and proud tradition of Social Welfare and Disaster Relief projects in Pakistan and around the World. Over the years, APPNA’s charitable activities have eclipsed all other programs and this altruistic nature has

become one of the foremost qualities, the organization is recognized for. APPNA has raised millions of dollars for different projects. Even more precious is hundreds of hours of free time and medical care pro-vided by APPNA members who have made a tremendous difference in countless lives. We proudly continue this tradition. Following is the highlight of some of SWDRC’s ongoing projects:

Restoring Sight (APPNA Eye Camps)It costs $73 to repair pediatric cataract, $28 for adult cataract and $40 for squint surgery. In May, APPNA conducted its second eye camp in Mansehra, KPK province of Pakistan in collaboration with LRBT. The Average Eye Camp Cost is $1730. Thanks to

your generous donations, we have secured funding to conduct one Eye camp per month for the rest of the year in all provinces of Pakistan.

Building Homes (Sujawal Project)SWDRC plans to build 100 homes in Village Rahib Amro in Sujawal Sind. This area was badly damaged and most homes completely destroyed after Floods of 2010 and 2011. This project is under way. The aver-age cost of each home is just over $ 1,000. SWDRC

has identified a ground partner who will build the houses. SHINE Humanity will provide monitoring and accounting for the project.

Clean Water Well ProjectAn estimated 250,000 children in Pakistan under the age of 5 years die every year due to water borne diseases. Most people, in the country, have only one water source. It may be a nearby river, pond, or rain-water from a catch basin or creek. Typically the

water source is used by both humans and animals. APPNA SWDRC is partnering with Hassan Foundation to provide clean water. We plan to fund Wells in all the provinces of Pakistan. We have funded our first Clean Water well in Winder, Baluchistan. The next Well is being con-structed in KPK.

APPNA SchoolAPPNA is building a school near Munirabad in Muzaffargarh District near Multan. The number of Grade School Children in the area is 250-300. The nearest school is 6-7 km and many children don’t attend school. The school is from 1 through 8th

grade. The construction is under way and will be completed in June, 2012. We are evaluating partnership with CARE Foundation to run the school. A Water purification plant will be installed on the school premises. It will be the primary source of clean water for the people living in the area.

APPNA DispensaryAPPNA operates a Dispensary near Munirabad in Muzaffargarh District. There is one full time Dispenser and a doctor visits 2 half days/week. We are providing health screening including Diabetes screening, basic medical care and free medicines. The total patients seen are 90/day. 56,000 patients have been seen in the dispensary so far. This is the primary source of free health care for majority of the popula-tion in that area. The cost to run the dispensary is $ 600/month

Cleft Lip ProjectIt takes as little as 45 minutes to save a child from a lifetime of pain, shame and isolation. You can give them a chance to go to school, make friends and have a bright future. You can help provide free sur-gery for a child suffering from cleft lip or cleft pal-ate. APPNA is sponsoring Plastic Surgeons from North America to go and perform these surgeries in Pakistan. Our first sponsorship is for Dr. Haroon Qazi who will be performing 30-40 Cleft lip surger-ies in Abbottabad.

SWDRC Seminar with Dr. Mohammad JawadAcid & Fire Burn Tragedies in Pakistan, How APPNA Can Help?

The Seminar is going to be on Saturday, July 7th at the APPNA Summer meeting in Washington DC. It begins with showing of the Oscar win-ning documentary, “Saving Face”. It will be fol-

lowed by a Q & A session and expert Panel discussion including Dr. Mohammad Jawad. We will focus on how APPNA can help with these tragic events affecting many oppressed people especially woman.

SWDRC E-Newsletter & WebsiteSWDRC plans to publish an E-Newsletter every month. The first Newsletter was published in May. Its primary objective is to let APPNA members and America know of all the charitable work APPNA and its members are doing. Please do read the Newsletter. It will make you proud. We are also updating SWDRC website. You can visit us at www.appna-swdrc.org to learn more about our projects.

In the end, I would request that you please generously donate to these projects so we can continue to make a difference in the lives of the unfortunate and forgotten people of the world. You can donate on the APPNA website or send a check with SWDRC in the memo to: APPNA, Attn.: Jennifer Wozniak, 6414 South Cass Avenue, Westmont, IL 60559

Committee Members: Dr. Ayesha Najib (Cochair), Dr. Abdul Majeed (Cochair), Dr. Haroon Durrani, Dr. M. Shahid Yousuf, Dr. Nadeem Zafar, Dr. Nadeem Ahmad, Dr. Shahram Malik, Dr. Shahab Arfeen, Dr. Nosheen Mazhar, Dr. Naeem Khan, Dr. Mansoor Alam, Dr. Munir Javed, Dr. Naveed Aziz, Dr. Muneer Abidi Dr. Aisha Zafar (Advisor)

Social Welfare & Disaster Relief CommitteeMubasher Rana, MD Chair , SWDRC


Alumni Reports

Since taking over the reins from the immediate past president, Dr. Faiz Bhora, we decided to focus on endeavors that encourage and facili-tate communication and active participation by alumni in the Association’s activities. To that end, we have re-vamped the previously

launched website such that networking, discussions and comments on a wide range of subjects can be facilitated in an accessible and non-intru-sive manner.

Please visit the Association’s website at www.akualumni.net. We hope you will like what you see; become a member; send us constructive feedback and comments to help improve on the website; allowing us to create a meaningful, effective and cohesive AKU alumni body in North America.

Our next focus is to increase membership to allow this organization to become self-sustaining. A healthy membership base is essential to keep us in the “black” as there are costs incurred to keep it legal and current.

I look forward to meeting many alumni at the 2012 AKUANA Annual Reunion in Washington, DC. I also look forward to meeting with APPNA members and officials. It is especially heart-warming that we have two classes celebrating an important milestone in Washington. The Class of 2002 and Class of 1992 are holding their class reunions to cele-brate their 10 and 20 year anniversaries since graduation. Guests from the Aga Khan University joining us to celebrate this year include Dr. Farhat Abbas, Dean, Medical College; Mr. Louis Ariano, University

Registrar; Mrs. Carol Ariano, Vice President, Human Resources, Mr. Zahir Janmohamed, Director General, Resource Development.

I’d like to take this opportunity to reiterate that AKUANA is a component society of APPNA. APPNA effectively represents all physicians of Pakistani descent in the United States and for us to have a voice in our adopted country, it is important to join and participate in the initiatives APPNA undertakes. We encourage all AKU Alumni to also become members of APPNA.

Where we go from here as an Association will be dictated by active participation and engagement of the AKU alumni body in North America.

Engage, Participate, Own Sadaf Khan, President

AKU-ANA is a not-for-profit organization based in the U.S. which repre-sents AKU Medical College Alumni in North America. Executive Committee: Sadaf Khan, MD (President*), Amna Iftikhar, MD (Secretary*), Syed J. Sher, MD (Treasurer*), Shain Amershi (Executive Coordinator, Ex-officio). *Elected office bearers term ends on December 31, 2013

Aga Khan University Alumni Association North America (AKUAANA)Sadaf Khan, MD – President AKUAANA 2012

Picture of AKUMC Courtyard

Thanks to the vibrant and zealous participa-tion of membership, AIMCAANA had another very busy and eventful year and momentum of progress continued through-out the year. AIMCAANA was able to make further progress on several fronts not only at

our alma mater but also in our adopted homeland including improving patient care, uplifting of education standards and opportunities for students, and stimulating critical thinking through social forums. AIMCAANA annual meeting in St Louis was once again very well attended and AIMCAANA membership continues to grow like the previous year. Our members have also been active in providing leader-ship in their communities and working on interfaith harmony for example Dr. Babar Cheema has taken a leading role in this regard in his home town, Louisville KY and Dr. Naeem Tahirkheli through his foundation in Pakistan continues to improve education by supporting the schools and living conditions by rebuilding houses for flood vic-tims. Many of our members contributed generously to this cause.

Following is a brief list and description of projects continued in year 2011-2012

Chemotherapy infusion suite at Jinnah Hospital ( JH) was estab-lished and maintained to give outpatient chemotherapy treatments to all patients. Due to its effective utilization there is already a need for its expansion to provide separate treatment area for men and women and active efforts are underway to accomplish that this year.

Library/ Reading room in JH was upgraded and furnished for post graduate students and doctors, to allow them to study in the hospital.

Especially equipped Car for Special student, Jawad Bhatti, funds was raised to provide a car for a special student at AIMC in recogni-tion of his efforts and encouragement.

Jinnah Allama Iqbal Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology ( JAIDE): Institute continues to provide education and treatment to 150 patients with diabetes every day. The plan for expansion of JAIDE has been under consideration to increase the services and education opportunities and is expected to complete by the end of this year.

Allama Iqbal Medical College Alumni of North America (AIMCANA)Abid Hussain, MD – President AIMCANA 2012


Alumni Reports

Iqbalian house in Philadelphia continue to provide residence to applicants looking for residencies, AIMCAANA continued its support to cover all the rent.

Qarze Hasna was also provided to 10 bright graduates of AIMC to help in their residency search.

Educational Seminars and Workshops, Many AIMCAANA, mem-bers utilized Visiting faculty program and delivered lecture at AIMC throughout the year. Notably Dr. Saad Usmani and Dr. Tahir Latif arranged seminar on hematological Malignancies at AIMC in January 2012 and Dr. Sajid Chaudhary helped with treating complicated Dengue patients in Lahore and met with Chief minister in regard to promote efforts for Dengue control and management in November of 2011. Dr. Shahram Malik organized small focus group discussion with AIMC graduates, regarding career pursuing in U.S.A.

Document Verification services: We now have a efficient and swift mechanism to complete expedited documentation verification for AIMC graduate facing a time constrain, please visit our website www.aimcaana.org for details.

Jinnah Hospital Public School: This school was set up to provide high quality education to children of lower scale employees working in AIMC and JH Lahore. As a token of appreciation for the services of AIMC employees, AIMCAANA provided books and furniture for children of AIMC employees, studying at Jinnah hospital public school.

The efforts on the part of AIMCAANA executive council are ever going and some of the projects expected to be started or completed in near future include expansion of chemotherapy suite, JAIDE, sending a container load of medical equipment acquired in the U.S. to JH Lahore and to partner in an effort to provide assistance in running of Jinnah Public School. In the end we like to thank APPNA membership in general and AIMCCANA members in particular for their generous support. We look forward to working with you all, seeking your advice and trying to make this forum more useful and productive. Please don’t hesitate to write us and tell us what we can do to improve our working further.

Truly yours, Abid Hussain, MD

Dear Colleagues,

I assumed the responsibility of DOGANA President this year. Our slogan this year is “Knowledge for Sharing and Young

Physicians for Caring”.

Being cognizant about our vision and goal, we galvanized two dor-mant committees. On one hand, Visiting Faculty Program was bol-stered under the leadership of its Chair, Adil Jamal Akhtar, MD and on the other hand, Young Physicians Committee was strengthened under its Chair Dr. Farrukh Hashmi.

These two committees have earnestly toiled to boost our vision. We are embarking on a tangible and permanent program for transfer of knowledge to students, residents and faculty at DUHS. Professor Masood Hameed Khan, VC DUHS will be attending our Summer Meeting in Washington DC to finalize and inaugurate this program.

Under the leader ship of Dr. Farrukh Hashmi, DOGANA’s YPC has finally established connections with the State Department to expedite the security clearance for Pakistani Physicians. Our first young Physician will arrive on U.S. soil as we attend the summer meeting. This is just the beginning. DOGANA YPC has vouched to assist all Pakistani Physicians who are having problems in Pakistan to travel to U.S.A. The effort of Zaffar Iqbal, Muslim Jami and Pervaiz Rahman regarding this issue is commendable.

DOGANA for the first time had its retreat in Orlando, Florida. Dr. Asif Mohiuddin and his team arranged a very successful retreat for the dowites. The hall mark of the retreat was the presence of U.S. Senators

and Congress Leaders who were informed about the J-1 issue and its complexities.

During this retreat a leadership workshop was arranged for the Central Council and Committee members. Dr. Azim Qureshi our GS spear headed the workshop. This was a very informative and successful event for the new and younger leadership of DOGANA.

DOGANA also has the unique contribution of hosting the first ever APPNA Presidential Debate. This debate was televised throughout North America for the physicians to hear directly from their future leadership. The moderation was brilliantly conducted by Aamir Jamal, Jamil Farooqui and Muslim Jami.

We have already taken out our first publication. Dr, Hasan Ali Habib, Azim Qureshi and Tariq Javaid Alam are now working on the Summer publication.

We have already applied for our 501-3c status.

DOGANA has a bright future because our young physicians are becoming active in the organization. They are the salvation for our organization. We will follow our slogan” leaders are those who pro-duce more leaders and not more followers”.

DOGANA has a very important role to play in APPNA. Not only have we produced leaders but have intoduced prime concepts like Social Form and APPNA debate.

Long Live DOGANA and Dowites!

Talha Siddiqui, MD President DOGANA 2012

Dow Graduate Association of North America (DOGANA) DOGANA – A Brilliant Future

Talha Siddiqui, MD – President DOGANA 2012


Alumni Reports

I am pleased to report that the FJMC ALUMNI ASSOCIATION has been follow-ing the aims and objectives as set forth by the Association.

As in previous years, an effort has been made this year to strengthen FJMC Alumni by recruiting new members and increasing our endowment funds, which in turn, enable us to fulfill our commitment to provide scholarship funds for needy students at Fatima Jinnah Medical College, support Hepatitis C clinics, as well as various other endeavors.

Our activities this year:

• Throughouttheyear,teleconferencestookplacewiththeobjectiveof achieving goals, objectives and planning for the future.

• Lettersweresentoutbypostalserviceande-mailedthroughourYahoo group for donations and requesting membership.

• OurAlumniwererepresentedbyDr.FarhatOsmanatAPPNASpring Meeting 2012.

• Recently,anon-linesurveywasconductedtogettheopinionregarding barriers surrounding membership to join the Alumni Association, attend Alumni meetings, and the best use of donated money. Surprisingly, having a physician spouse was the biggest rea-son not to attend Alumni meetings.

• Orwebsite,whichiscurrentlyinunderprogress,willsoonhavetheadded feature of PAY- PAL.

• Obtaining(501)c3statusforFJMCAlumniassociationiscurrentlyin progress.

• Ane-LibrarywasestablishedatFJMCin2009byFJMCAlumniwith the help of SWRDC to fulfill our goal of extending education and knowledge to 600 undergraduate students, 25 post graduates and 50 faculty members. This year, FJMC Alumni will be helping the e-library again with funds to secure a Wi-Fi Internet supply with dedicated lines, as currently library is non-functional due to a lack of Internet access.

• RecentlyFJMCalumniadoptedanaccommodationforgirlsinDetroit, Michigan as part of a Young Physician project and are cur-rently busy furnishing this apartment.

• Thisyear,theSupremeCourthasgivenadecisioninfavorofupgrading Fatima Jinnah Medical College to a University status. We are excited and honored to be alumni of this great institution and are looking forward to strengthen our bond further with our Alma Mater.

• Onasadnote,ourbelovedDr.RoseMadanpassedawaythisyear.For FJMC graduates her role is indescribable, other alumni mem-bers may have come across her as a tough examiner, as she was a world-renowned physiologist.

“Surely we belong to God and to Him shall we return.”

Fatima Jinnah Medical College Alumni of North America (FJMCNA)Farhat Osman, MD – President, FJMCANA 2012

Kemcaana recently held it’s seventh annual retreat at the Dallas Westin Galleria from April 20-22. This was a very well coordinated event which started with dinner and mushaira arranged by Dr. Amanullah Khan on Friday. The next morning, there was an excellent

CME program arranged by Dr. Ahmed Raza and then followed by a brainstorming session in the afternoon moderated by Dr. Riaz Chaudhry.

Banquet that night was held along with the North Texas/ Dallas chapter followed by entertainment by Jawad Ahmed. Special thanks to the chair of the retreat committee, Dr. Khalid Mahmood and his team for a job well done.

The computer lab, for which the Kemcaana members had graciously donated in the last summer meeting, is undergoing renovation and thirty new computers and two servers will be added in June. Our

Kemcaana village of Farooqabad is now complete and we built a 100 homes, vocational rehab center, a school and provided clean water for this village. Several Kemcolians sponsored free eye camps through LRBT in different cities in Pakistan including in our village of Farooqabad.

The scholarship program remains the star of Kemcaana and we have 47 scholarships through the Endowment fund and 27 through Thanks Scholarship. I want to acknowledge the efforts of Drs Masood Akbar and Bashir Chaudhry for this noble cause. I am also grateful to Mr Jamal Hamdani for sponsoring Hamdani postgraduate scholarship and our first recipient just got matched and will be starting his residency in July this year. Mr Hamdani has also provided free wifi to the entire KEMU campus and the hostels.

Our Kemcaana House in Philadelphia continues to accommodate grad-uates of all medical colleges. This is sponsored by Kemcaana members so that its subsidized and students have to pay only a 100 dollars a

King Edward Medical College Alumni Association of North AmericaAisha Zafar, MD – President KEMCAANA 2012


Alumni Reports

For the first time in the history of APPNA, the 2011 winter meeting was held at Quaid-e-Azam Medical College in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, in close collaboration with QAMC

Alumni, QAMCAANA and APPNA. It was a very successful gathering where a large number of APPNA members along with their families enjoyed the hospitality of QMCAANA and the host committee. From

America to Australia, Sweden to South Africa, many of those in atten-dance had traveled far across the world to exchange and share their experiences and medical expertise with the local physicians at the CME seminars during the Conference. In addition, APPNA delegates were provided with exclusive tours of rarely viewed ancient palaces and access to rare historical artifacts of state rulers, who were the emi-grated successors of the Abbassid Dynasty of Baghdad. Delegates also

Qaid-e-Azam Medical College Alumni Association of North America (QMCAANA)Massoud E. Mian, MD – President QMCAAMA 2012

Aisha Zafar, President Kemcaana 2012 Maqbool Arshad, President-Elect Tariq Jamil, Past president Ayesha Najib, Secretary Ahmed Mehdi Malik, Treasurer.

month. This place is meant for students and doctors who are here for their exams or for the residency interviews. Kemcaana recently spon-sored another such residence in Detroit while a second one in Detroit was sponsored by another Kemcolian, Dr. Mohammad Suleman.

We need your help in finding electives and rotations for our students and young doctors. Dr. Waseem Khaliq, who is at the faculty at John Hopkins, and Dr. Ali Hashmi who recently went back from U.S.A and is at KEMU in Pakistan, have been working together in helping guide these students and finding them a rotation. Please send us your informa-tion if you can help these students and doctors.

Please do join us on Friday, July 6th at the Kemcaana Alumni dinner at the Gaylord resort in Washington DC. Our winter meeting this year is being held at KEMU in collaboration with Appna from December 21-23.

We look forward to see you,

The Khyber Medical College Alumni Association of North America (KMCAANA) remained busy with its various projects through the year.

The alumni continues to remain engaged with the administration, teachers and students of the Khyber Medical College (KMC) to explore ways and means to help it with various projects. As part of these endeavors, the alumni decided to donate a clinical skills lab to the college. The Governor Pukhtoonkhwa, Barrister Masood Kausar, inaugurated the same this last December. As part of acknowledgement of the services of KMCAANA for KMC, the academic council of the college was gracious in naming the lab after the founding president of KMCAANA, S. Amjad Hussain. KMCAANA wishes to acknowledge the services of its ex-president, Dr. Javed Bangash who was instrumental in raising funds for the project.

KMCAANA successfully completed two if its projects for the flood victims of Pukhtoonkhwa this last year. The science laboratory for the students of Federal Government High School, Nowshera was rehabili-tated and fully equipped with generous help from KMCAANA and APPNA members. We would like to extend our special thanks to the Virginia chapter of APPNA who donated a major part of the funds. Similarly, KMCAANA built and equipped a computer laboratory for the students of Government Higher Secondary School Number 1, Nowshera Cantt. The student volunteers of the Social Welfare Society of KMC made both these projects possible with help on the ground.

KMCAANA is in the process of amending its constitution. We hope to present the amendments to the membership during this summer meet-ing. After the amendments are approved, KMCAANA would apply for a tax-exempt charity status so that our projects can be further streamlined and made more efficient. We thank all our friends for their support.

Khyber Medical College Alumni Association Of North AmericaArshad Rehan, MD – President 2012


look forward to serving the APPNA community and sharing their thoughts and ideas to do better.

I am also excited to share the current developments at the Quaid-e-Azam Medical College (QAMC). Due in large part to the dedication, contribution and generosity of APPNA members, construction is underway for critical medical facilities at QAMC including an Intensive Care Unit and kidney disease unit. Furthermore, a Women’s Center and Pediatric Ward are also being built to better serve the local and regional population of Bhawalpur.

These recent developments indicate the vibrant organization that we are – and the even more vibrant one we hope to become. I hope you will join me at the APPNA’s 35th Annual Summer Convention being held from July 4 to July 8, 2012 in Washington, D.C. to celebrate and strengthen our common goals in APPNA.

Alumni Reports

enjoyed spectacular views and up-close access to local wildlife includ-ing the endangered black buck deer during the trip to Lal Sohanra National Park.

The winter meeting “11 was predominantly sponsored by the local host committee of QAMC and resulted in the alleviation of the finan-cial burden on APPNA budget. Such a successful Winter Conference would not have been possible without the diligence and valuable con-tributions of Winter Committee chairman, Dr. Dawood Nasir and his fellow members of the Host Committee for the Winter Conference.

In addition, the new Executive Committee of QAMCAANA was elected as follows: President – Dr. Massoud Elahi Mian President Elect – Dr. Khalid Iqbal Secretary – Dr. Zahid Imran Treasurer – Dr. Shahid Munif

One of the best parts of being an APPNA member is getting to know our diverse alumni members. Whether I am greeting them at a recep-tion or chatting with them through correspondence, I never fail to be impressed by their energy, intelligence, and commitment to APPNA. I

Dear fellow APPNA members,

It is an honor and pleasure to be able to update you with reference to Rawalpindi Medical College Alumni Association of North America (RMCAANA). As you are aware, RMCAANA

is a younger alumni. However, exhibiting typical Pakistani ingenuity, we have not let that small fact hinder us in performing feats greater than our size.

Over the last five years, RMCAANA has been very active and working in collaboration with Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC). With the help of RMC Alumni on other countries, we established a Burn Center, which was fully funded and run for a number of years by overseas Rawalians before being handed over to the Punjab Government as a part of RMC. We also worked with RMC to expand the Institute of Psychiatry and funded the salary for two child psychologists for one year to jump-start the child psychology program. Over the last two years, we have been working to provide rehabilitation assistance to victims of the tragic flooding in Pakistan in 2010. This includes providing housing to

two villages, in addition to establishing a primary school to be run by an NGO experienced in the educational field in Pakistan. Another primary school is being built by RMCAANA with local funding.

RMCAANA has also been working through RMCME to promote CME activities in Pakistan. Speakers from the U.S., Western Europe and Australia have fortnightly online interactive presentations for the Pakistani audience. The program is currently being run for RMC affili-ated physicians, however it is not restricted and other physicians, train-ees and medical students are welcome to participate.

RMCAANA is also in the process of setting up scholarships for two stu-dents (for each year of MBBS) at RMC. The scholarship is being designed to cover tuition, books, boarding / lodging and other reason-able expenses for selected students.

In the coming years, we are looking to further our collaboration with our Alma Mater as well as participate more actively in social, educational and developmental activities being run by APPNA. RMCAANA mem-bers are excited to be a part of APPNA and look forward to many proj-ects in collaboration with APPNA and other alumni.

Rawalpindi Medical College Alumni Association of North AmericaM. Qasim Hasan, MD, MPH – President RMCAANA 2012


P H O T O • G A L L E R YP H O T O • G A L L E R Y

M. Shahid Yousuf

Dr. Saima Zafar, APPNA President 2012 addresses the Spring Meeting Banquet at Aria Hotel, Las Vegas, NV on March 17, 2012. PHOTO RIGHT>> (L-R) Dr. Javed Suleman APPNA President Elect 2013, Dr. Javed Akhtar Chair Board of Trustees, Dr. Joseph Emmanuel and Dr. Mohammad Suleman Former APPNA Presideht

(L-R) Dr. Aftab Naz (CA) Member Board of Trustees, Dr. Asif Rehman (NY)APPNA Secretary 2012, Dr. Riaz Chaudhry (NY) BELOW (L-R) Dr. Farhat Osman (MI) Dr. Naheed Chaudhry (Canada) Dr.Aftab Ahmad (KY) and Dr. Muslim Jami at the Executive Council Meeting March ë 12

BANQUET PHOTOS by M. Shahid Yousuf

<<PHOTO LEFT (L-R) Dr.Nayyar (NV) , Dr. Shahid Nusrat (CA)Dr. Ghayasuddin (TX) and Dr. Farid Qazi APPNA Treasurer 2012

Dr. Mahmood Ijaz (KY) and Mrs. Shazia Ijaz

Below Dr Nassar Qureshi (NY) at the Executive Council Meeting, Las Vegas NV March 2012

Photo above and two photos below are from the March 17th, 2012 Banquet at the conclusion of the Spring Meeting of the Executive Council APPNA. Photos below Host Committee Members

M. Shahid Yousuf



M. Shahid Yousuf

Sujawal Sind Floods Project. Discussions with Shine Humanity at the Las Vegas, NV APPNA Spring 2012 Meeting (L-R) Asif Choudhry, Manzoor Tariq, Mubasher Rana, Salman Naqvi, Seema Hassan , Farzana Naqvi.

KEMCAANA, WAPPNA, Dr. Mohammad Suleman (LA) and Dr. Nassar Qureshi (NY) together with Dr. Majid Aized have funded 4 residential units to help young physicians such as those seen in this photo to gain externships, appear in interviews and in other ways gain experience and residency positions.

APPNA Social Welfare and Disaster Relief Committee in cooperation with Layton Rahimtoola Benevolent Trust (LRBT) has set up free eye camps for the poor in Multan, Mansehra and there are plans to set up more camps. Some 12 eye camps are planned funded by APPNA. (All Munirabad photos courtesy Mr. Babar Mughal)

Soles for Souls. APPNA members in April 2012 raised funds to provide shoes to all in-habitants of Munirabad APPNA village. Some villagers received shoes for the fi rst time

PHOTO BELOW Winder Water Well Project of SWDRC Winder, Lasbela District, Baluchistan was chosed as one of the locations for a water well dug in cooperation with Has-san Foundation USA. Wells in other provinces are also being planned by APPNA. (Photo courtesy Hassan Foundation)

APPNA Doctors House of Detroit (L-R) Drs. Rizwan, Shahrukh Khan, Kamran, Waqas Jehangir, Yasir, Salman Mehboob, Adnan Malik , Umer Iftikhar,Majid Toseef Aized, Zohaib Ahmed and Adeel Masood

PHOTO BELOW Munirabad APPNA Village so named after APPNA built 128 homes for the victims of 2010 fl oods. APPNA funded school is being built.

Photo Center Dr. Saima Zafar with Nicole Porreca Deputy Director and Political-Military Team Lead, Pakistan Desk, US State Department at March 16th 2012 dinner, Aria Hotel, Las Vegas Nevada

Dr. Saima Zafar, APPNA President 2012 with Mr. Rob Nabors , Director Legislative Affairs, President Obama Administration at the banquet March 17th, 2012 where he was the keynote speaker.

Dr. Ikram Ullah Khan (NV) former president of APPNAintroduces keynote speaker at Spring 2012 banquet held during the APPNA Executive Council Meeting Las Vegas.



M. Shahid Yousuf

PHOTO ABOVE AND LEFT St. Louis Chapter Spring Picnic 2012( Photo courtesy Dr. Naseem Shekhani) PHOTO BELOW Dow Graduate Association of North America 9th Annual Retreat , Orlando Florada April 23,2012

< Photo Left King Edward Medical College Alumni Association of North America (KEMCAANA) Retreat March 19th- 21st 2012 with current and former KEMCAANA Presidents (L-R) Drs. Khalid Mehmood, Masood Akbar, Aisha Zafar (IN), Hassan Bukhari(TX), Mohammad Haseeb (IL), Mubasher Rana (CA) and Riaz Chaudhry (LA)

Congresswoman Sandy Adams (R-FL) receives DOGANA award from Dr. Saima Zafar. Dr. Talha Siddiqui , DOGANA President on left. ( Photo courtesy Dt. Talha Siddiqui)

PHOTO ABOVE (L-R) Drs.Asif Rehman, Pervaiz Iqbal and Asad Qamar at DOGANA Retreat.PHOTO Below Pakistan Physicians Society of Illinois Executive Committee of 2012

PHOTO RIGHT >>Standing Dr.Aftab Ahmad Past President SMCAANA (Sind Medical Col-lege Alumni Association of North America), Dr. Javed Suleman President Elect APPNA 2013, Dr. Mansoor Alam Executive Director SMCAANA, Sitting Dr. Zeba Amir (NY), Dr. Ayesha Iftikhar (IL) and Dr. Sonia Shakeel (TX) at SMCAANA Retreat. 2012 New York ,NYPPS (Pakistani-descent Physicians Society) of Illinois photos courtesy of Dr. Mansoor Alam

Dr. Rukshinda Hameedi ( 4th from left) President 2012 SMCAANA with her her graduating class of Sind Medical College Karachi, Pak-sitan at the SMCAANA Retreat March 30th - April 1st 2012 NY

Photo 1 st Below Attendees of SMCAANA Re-treat 2012. (SMCAANA Retreat Photos by Dr. Furrukh Khan)Photo 2nd Below Children sing the national an-thems at Illinois Chapter (PPSIL) meeting 4-28-12.



M. Shahid Yousuf

Standing L-R Dr. Zehra Ali, Dr. Irfan Ali, Dr. Zahra Yousuf , ?, ?, Dr. Aftab Naz, Mrs Aftab Naz, Dr. Ilyas Rajput, Dr. Zuby Rajput,Mrs. Talat Lallani, ?, Mrs. Nasir Iqbal, Dr Nasir Iqbal, Dr. Lallani, ?, ?, Dr. Razia Rehman

Sitting Dr. Riaz Chaudhary , Mrs.Shahida Chaudhry, Dr. Raza Hashmi, ?, Dr. Abdul Rehman Location Registan Samarkand , May 15th,2012

ABOVE Bus 2 in front of the Kalyan Minaret (built 1127 AD), Bukhara, Uzbekistan Photo RIGHT location Imam Bukharií s mausoleum (L-R) Tasnim Hassan, Zenaida Chughtai, ?, Shaheen Mian, Aliya Khan, Shaheen Iqbal, Wasima Yunus, Babra Rana, Talat Bukhari (Photo courtesy Aliya Khan) BELOW RIGHT Bus 2 at the Hast Imam complex of buildings in Tashkent where the Osman Quran, completed in 651 AD is kept

UZBEKISTAN TOUR May 2012APPNA CME tours have become popolar with mem-bers as they offer learning opportunities.This year the spring tour included Russia and Uzbeki-stan. About 120 members and their families toured these countries.Tourists were excited to see old centers of culture and learning such as Tashkent, Bukhara and Samarkand.We found the people very friendly.LEFT A group of school students touring Shah Naqshband Muhammad Bahauddin Uways al-Bukhari Mausoleum wanted to be pho-tographed with our group.

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Documents

APPNA Summer Journal 2012