Pakistan Female Doctors Get Ray of Hope via DoctHERs

A Pakistani social enterprise, DoctHERs, is set to offer the female doctors and medical students the ease to provide quality healthcare to marginalized women. An organization for the women and by the women, DoctHER is ‘empowering women to fulfill their Hippocratic oath in the face of cultural and social constraints that leave many of them otherwise unable to practice medicine after marriage,’ said reports.

Founded by Dr Sara Khurram and Dr Iffat Zafar, who have first-hand experience being lady doctors at Pakistan, DoctHER provides affordable healthcare and helps doctors to balance their career and life. Both of the founder members, who were cornered for being lady and doctors, faced similar unlikely situations. “My motivation was that I was terminated from my residency as I conceived the baby. And this is just one of the issues that female doctors face in Pakistan,” said Dr.Khurram.

According to reports, with the maximum numbers of female medical students who wants to become doctors, Pakistan has only a minority of registered female women doctors.  A 2014-15 data issued by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, registered female doctors at Pakistan is only 23 percent, a result of the 63 percent medical students.

Reports are that in Pakistan, where the conservative social system defines roles of men and women in the family, women often are not left with any choice despite their educational qualification. However, the picture in the medical colleges is completely different. As asserted by a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Karachi Medical and Dental College, Rubina Tahir, as many as 10 percent of her undergraduate students is men. Remaining 90 percent are women.  

Prof. Tahir also noted that as marriage being a compulsion for most of the medical students, Pakistan is having a serious scarcity of doctors in near future. Apart from marriage restricting female medical students from being doctors, a well-paid career in pharmaceutical and hospitality is also attracting many.

Plus, in remote Pakistani villages and conservative areas, where the women patients are not comfortable to disclose their problems to male doctors, DoctHER came out as the solution. The doctors provide consultations via internet connections to patients in clinics, termed as tele-clinics, to treat patients in person.

Reports are that the doctor also has access to the clinic’s diagnostic tools and can monitor patients’ symptoms remotely. Connected by technology DoctHERs run total three clinics across Pakistan. Apart from problems like power cut and irregular internet services, patients say that a DoctHER clinic is always a better option than the local government hospital in the area.

The founders admitted that in remote areas in Pakistan, like Manshera, it was hard primarily to convince patients that a doctor appearing on screen is true and will hear to their problems and treat them. “Convincing them was very difficult but afterwards those who eventually came and discussed their problems, many of their reservations have been addressed. Now gradually people understand this system, said a clinic nurse, Abida Haroon.