Planetary Health Academia: Border is not a barrier for these Bangladeshi-origin physicians
Meet the diaspora of Bangladeshi doctors transferring their skills and knowledge to their local counterparts through knowledge-sharing sessions, international fellowships, scholarships and global summits
Dr Mohammad Rafiur Rahman, a cardiac surgeon at United Hospital, was the first overseas travel fellow of Planetary Health Academia (PHA).
With the help of the consortium, he visited Royal Papworth Hospital NHS foundation trust — a specialist heart and lung hospital in Cambridge — and spent around eight weeks in various advanced learning sessions.
Dr Rafiur believes that with the help of a good mentor, one can become a great surgeon.
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"Think about getting legends as teachers. At Papworth, I had the honour to work with many legendary heart surgeons, which benefited me in innumerable ways," he said.
"Besides their mastery in routine surgeries like CABG (bypass surgery), heart valve surgeries, etc, I got to witness many surgeries that do not happen regularly in Bangladesh, such as complex aortic surgeries, LVAD implant surgeries, heart transplants, and so on. I learned their strict protocol of patient preparation before surgery and post surgical care," he added.
Dr Rafiur attended teaching workshops and multi-disciplinary team meetings, looked after patients in the clinics, and observed cutting edge technology in the operating theatre.
He also attended free courses which were taken care of by the Planetary Health Academia — a consortium of Bangladeshi-origin doctors across the world that aims to transfer, update, and enhance medical knowledge and technology for healthcare professionals in Bangladesh and worldwide.
"He also went for the London Core Review (LCR), a cardiothoracic surgery course which costs GBP500, but we secured that for him as the founder director of London Core Review course - Mr Aziz Momin - wanted to contribute to this great endeavour of ours," said Dr Shakil Farid, one of the PHA trustees and Consultant Cardiac and Aortic Surgeon at Royal Papworth J Hospital.
PHA started its journey after the Covid-19 pandemic and has since initiated other programs, such as scholarships for five medical students each year, the first-ever medical Olympiad hosted by Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital where representatives of over 100 medical colleges attended, and various learning sessions and seminars with physicians, bureaucrats and other healthcare policy makers.
The consortium organises various online teaching programs for junior doctors to stimulate lateral thinking. Instead of teaching them the causes of chest pain, for example, they teach the junior doctors how to assess a patient with chest pain and its subsequent management strategies (carefully taking into consideration the pros and cons of the different strategies) so that they are equipped with practical life experiences.
And at the specialist level, they offer opportunities like the one Dr Rafiur had this year.
Dr Tasbirul Islam, a clinical associate professor at Chicago Medical School under the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, is the founder and chairperson of PHA.
"Our vision is that our future healthcare professionals will have access to the latest cutting-edge technology… In future, we also want to work with physicians who work in rural areas and don't have access to modern medicine. We will train them remotely, or in person on occasion," he elaborated on the mission and vision of PHA.
These Bangladeshi-origin physicians working in the developed world came together during the pandemic when they contributed significantly to Bangladesh's fight against Covid-19 and helped Dhaka secure more vaccines and remain up-to-date with the latest treatment strategies.
It was then Dr Tasbirul came up with the idea of forming a charitable platform to exchange ideas and knowledge. After the platform was founded, more Bangladeshi-origin global figures joined in the efforts.
Besides Dr Shakil, the trustee board includes noted physicians like Dr Zaker Ullah, a consultant general and oncoplastic breast surgeon at Barts Health London, the oldest and one of the biggest teaching hospitals in UK; Dr Chowdhury H Ahsan, clinical professor of medicine and director of Cardiovascular Research at the University Medical Center, Las Vegas; Dr Basher M Atiquzzaman, faculty at the University of Central Florida; and Dr Nasser Khan, director of Cardiovascular Fellowship Program and medical director of Structural Heart Program at Methodist Dallas Medical Center Texas, US.
It also features media personnel like Omar Sharif who had a significant role in creating public awareness during Covid-19 by taking interviews of various experts managing Covid-19 and preventing health related misinformation.
"We formed PHA, initially with a plan to carry out zoom sessions where we will exchange knowledge, provide knowledge to the local experts and gain from them. However, then we expanded our programs quite tremendously. Now our target audiences are medical students, newly qualified doctors, middle-grade doctors, and specialists. The ultimate goal is to improve healthcare delivery in Bangladesh and not only prevent health tourism, but reverse it!", Dr Shakil said.
Expanding horizons
Planetary Health Academia is now expanding its horizon to engage far more professionals and medical students next February when they will be organising a global summit in Dhaka's United Convention Hall, situated very conveniently right next to the Dhaka airport.
Cardiologist Dr Sarah Clarke, the president of the Royal College of Physicians in England, Professor Timothy Graham, the vice president of the Royal College of Edinburgh, and Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, will attend the summit.
Jagat Narula, president-elect of the World Heart Federation, Prof David Taggart, the past President of the society for cardiothoracic surgery for Great Britain and Ireland, Sergio Larach, the past president of the American College of Colorectal surgery, Dr Josh Wright, the president of the British Haematology Society are amongst the other notable experts joining the summit.
The summit will take place on 24 and 25 February.
Prior to the global summit, some pre-summit workshops and courses will take place — one of those will be the famous London Core Review course, which is going to be held in Asia for the first time.
"It is going to be a three-day course [February 18,19 and 20] attended by hundred participants from various countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India," Dr Shakil said.
"We shall organise wet labs on 22 February where we will have bovine hearts to teach attendants different surgical techniques. It is a good way of learning advanced surgical techniques in a safe manner as it involves operating on animal organs or cadavers. This takes the stress away from the operators of learning on a live patient. There will also be a workshop on liver transplantation."
There will also be pre-conference courses related to improvement of maternal health, which will be carried out in association with the society for obstetrics and gynaecology of Bangladesh.
The objective of the pre-summit programs, he said, was that they do not want the participants just to come for two days and join some lectures and go. They desire a long-lasting impact.
There will be a poster competition of interesting cases and conditions by medical students and interns. The conference will also include sessions that will involve career guidance for junior doctors and medical students who are aspiring to go abroad and get valuable training to become future specialists and leaders in their respective fields.
Dr Shakil said they are expecting around a thousand participants for the February summit. It will cost a nominal fee for attendants, he said.
All these programs PHA has been conducting in Bangladesh have been cost-intensive. However, they said they couldn't have done it without the support of the pharmacological industry and private hospitals.
"Our dream is — we want to contribute at every level, from medical students to experts — with whatever assistance they need in their different career phases, so that we can stop and perhaps reverse the trend of Bangladeshi patients seeking treatment abroad," Dr Shakil said.
"A medical student needs to have the basic classroom-type lectures and development of lateral thinking. We will help them with this. We shall also work very closely with the authorities like the Directorate General of Health Education, Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons and different medical societies, in order to improve the medical syllabus, which will be consistent with changes and modifications in medical syllabus throughout the world," he said.
"Junior doctors need assistance in going abroad, taking specialist training and coming back to serve our country. We will help them with their dreams and ambitions. Middle-grade doctors need to know how they can use advanced and cutting edge technologies by having first-hand experience from the advanced healthcare systems in the world," Dr Shakil added.
"This journey to improve healthcare delivery in our country wouldn't have been possible without the cooperation of different medical societies in Bangladesh. We are very grateful to them for welcoming us with open arms. The future of healthcare in our country is very bright after all. We have a brilliant, hard working and highly talented medical workforce in our country," he concluded.
