LAHORE: As part of its bid to radically overhaul the teaching of medicine, the University of Health Sciences (UHS) has formally inaugurated an initiative to include child health care and nutrition measures within the MBBS curriculum of Punjab province.
In collaboration with UNICEF, UHS started the first stage of a four-stage capacity building exercise yesterday. The groundbreaking project hopes to enable upcoming physicians with skills to fight malnutrition prevailing in Pakistan.
The program began with a three-day capacity building training that focused on Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM). The training session was conducted under the UHS Department of International Linkages and witnessed a gathering of experts of medical education, pediatrics, public health, and healthcare training, who belong to medical institutions across the province.
A Strategic Rollout to Meet Global Standards
The UHS and UNICEF cooperation will undertake four distinct training courses during the period from May to June 2026:
- Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM)
- Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF)
- Early Childhood Development (ECD)
- Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation (MMS)
The workshops aim to standardise and harmonise nutrition training in undergraduate medical education. This modern curriculum is in line with the scientifically based recommendations of both UNICEF and WHO.
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The contemporary CMAM workshop addresses the practical aspects of pediatrics. The participants have been exploring the early detection of illness, treatment approaches, referral methods, stabilization services, supplementation programs, and community follow-up programs for infants who suffer from severe and moderate acute malnutrition.
Tackling Pakistan’s “Silent Emergency”
The link is established at an opportune moment given the importance of health concerns. Statistics provided by WHO estimate that nearly 45 million children under the age of five around the world suffer from acute malnutrition. At home, the facts are no less grim, where data from UNICEF has shown that one-third of children in Pakistan are subject to malnutrition and growth problems.
“Nutrition and health issues among early childhood can no longer remain marginal fields in medical education,” said Prof Ahsan Waheed Rathore, Vice Chancellor of UHS, in his speech. “Considering the increased problem of malnutrition and illnesses among children in Pakistan, our future doctors should not be equipped only with theoretical knowledge but also with practical knowledge regarding community nutrition problems and its identification.”
Bridging Clinical Medicine and Social Reality
The eminent members of the medical community concurred on the issue raised by the Vice Chancellor. Dr. Najaf Masood, who is the Dean of Pediatrics at the Allama Iqbal Medical College and Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, referred to the situation as “a silent emergency”.
While on the other hand, Professor Dr. Shahid Mahmood Sethi, a renowned facilitator and former chairman of community medicine at AIMC, stressed upon the extensive nature of curriculum changes as modern medical education needs to ensure that students learn to identify not only the biological but also socio-economic factors responsible for shaping mother and child health status.
In this broad curricular reform, UHS hopes to create a highly responsive and proactive healthcare force that will secure the future generation of Pakistanis.
