A GROUNDBREAK ING surgeon has been recognised in Pakistan for his innovative and life-changing con-tributions to medicine.
Consultant ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) Surgeon, Iqbal Khan, who works at the Bradford Royal Infirmary -part of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – and the Yorkshire Auditory Implant Services (YAIS), has been awarded an overseas honorary professorship for his voluntary work in setting up Paki-stan’s Cochlear Implant Service.
Professor Khan was conferred with his new title at a ceremony at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Scienc-es, part of the Shaheed Zukfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University, the largest tertiary care hospital in in the country’s capital, Islamabad, on April 7.
The award honours Pakistanis working abroad who have excelled in the promotion of medical advance-ment in their home nation and reflects Professor Khan’s decades of voluntarily service to the nation’s hospitals in establishing ENT services, as well as providing teaching and training to the country’s doctors and surgeons.
Professor Khan said his service to medicine in Pakistan is down to “wanting to give something back” to the country where he did his initial medical training and where his family still live.
He continued: “I started the country’s first cochlear implant surgical training and established the first cochlear implant service back in 2000.
“Over the years, I developed the medical training, established surgical skills workshops and labs, along-side raising funds so that implants could be given to those most in need.
“I’m proud to say that we now have six centres across the country, carrying out vital ENT and cochlear implant surgery to the people of Pakistan.”
In the last few years, he has also helped establish a main laboratory for surgical training and dissections, “to ensure that the country has a continuous flow of new surgical trainees coming through the medical system.”
Professor Khan grew up in Lahore where he studied medicine at the King Edward Medical University be-tween 1982-87.
After initial training in Lahore, he came to the UK in 1992 where he undertook post-graduate and special-ity training across England. He studied for his fellowship in skull base and cochlear implantation at Man-chester University between 2002-4 and became a consultant with Bradford Teaching Hospitals in 2006.
In Pakistan, he has operated on around 3,000 patients over the 20 years he has been working voluntarily in the country – 90 per cent of whom are babies and children.
Professor Khan has secured funding from multiple sources over the years and most recently, he received a large donation from a private charity, alongside regional and government funding from the country’s ed-ucation department grants.
He is keen to encourage others to follow in his footsteps as he returns two to three times a year to Paki-stan – using mainly annual leave – to carry out his voluntary work.
Professor Khan thanked his ENT colleagues, Dave Strachan, Chris Raine, Helen Tan and Simon Carr for their support and said they were “delighted for him.”
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