Dr. Farhan Mehmood

What is PLAB? In simple words, it is one of the ways you can get registered with the General Medical Council (UK). The other way is through MRCP/MRCS or any other membership exam. PLAB consists of two parts. Part one of the PLAB test can be taken in your home country, while for part two, you have to travel to the UK because it is only conducted in Manchester, UK.  A lot of people ask about the right time to begin preparing for PLAB. Are you also looking for the answer to this question? This blog will certainly have the answers to most of your questions. The best possible timeline for the PLAB journey is that you must get done with your English Language Test in the final year of your medical school, PLAB 1 during house job, and PLAB 2 after completing the house job. The total cost may vary from 1-1.5 Million PKR. Let’s discuss it further. You need to have a valid English Language Test before you book PLAB 1; either OET or IELTS. What we mean by valid is that you must have an overall...

Being the only doctor in the family may be comparable with being the eldest sibling. The eldest sibling has a tremendous responsibility. No one is there to guide you regarding your career, relationships, financial matters, and other responsibilities. You have to learn everything the hard way or by experience. Just like that, being the only doctor in the family is hard. You won’t have anyone to guide you regarding your career. And the fact is, no one understands if you decide about your career. Although, if you have an elder sibling, you might get a bit of advice on other matters but a career. On family meetups, if the rest of the siblings are from other professions, you feel left out in the conversations. Trying to fit in sometimes becomes harder and you could only wish that one of your siblings should’ve been a doctor. Concerning pros, you have a different level of respect among the family and the relatives. The amount of satisfaction you get after helping someone with medical issues ...

I hadn’t had the turn to work in the designated COVID ward since the pandemic began. However, I kept on performing my duties in the oncology ward as per schedule and may have contracted COVID and recovered from it. There’s a 10 days duty roster in place for COVID designated wards in the hospital I’m working in. Simply put, you have to work for 10 days and then you get the next 10 days off as a period of quarantine. In the last days of April this year, I came to know that I’ve been placed on the COVID roster for the first 10 days of May. Not having had worked in the designated COVID ward before, it was quite the news for me to digest. With the intense fear of what might happen and how would I do the duties I have no idea about, I came to the COVID isolation ward for the first duty. Although I had my COVID vaccination completed, the fact that there might be different variants of the virus, the fear could not be shaken off. Having an acquaintance who had already performed duties in the CO...

Annually almost ten thousand doctors graduate in Pakistan. After that, they all have to complete a one-year mandatory house job (internship) to get registered with the medical profession regulatory authority in Pakistan that is Pakistan Medical Commission nowadays. Due to the abundance of private medical colleges and a large number of doctors being injected into the system annually, job opportunities are becoming scarce and a lot of doctors remain jobless for an indefinite period after completion of their house job. Although the number of doctors per 1000 people is just 1 in Pakistan, the government has failed to create job opportunities for doctors and bring that number up. Many of the doctors after completing their house job go for local post-grad exams as a norm. Despite clearing the exams they have to wait for 1-2 years to start their training as there is an induction policy in place which requires them to have experience of working in the primary or secondary healthcare setting. T...