Reflections on a Visit to Karachi: a Small World, After All Paul A
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Georgia State University College of Law Reading Room Faculty Publications By Year Faculty Publications 12-1-2009 Reflections on a Visit to Karachi: A Small World, After All Paul A. Lombardo Georgia State University College of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/faculty_pub Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons Recommended Citation Paul A. Lombardo, Reflections on a Visit to Karachi: A Small World, After All, Bioethics Links, Dec. 2009, at 1. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Reading Room. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications By Year by an authorized administrator of Reading Room. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Volume 5 Issue 2 December 2009 cbecSIUT Pakistan Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture Bioethics Links Each year we invite national and international students and faculty to participate in different activities in CBEC. In this issue of Bioethics Links some of our guests, including a visiting faculty member from America, write about their impressions of their visit to CBEC and Karachi. Editor Reflections on a Visit to Karachi: A Small World, after All Paul A. Lombardo, Ph.D., J.D.* It was well past midnight when my plane of the old city doctors at SIUT face landed at the Jinnah International Airport in daunting challenges in identifying Karachi and after almost a full day in appropriate donors and navigating the transit, fatigue had dulled my perceptions. medical complexities of transplant surgery But by the time I made the trip through the for those in need of replacement organs. almost empty airport I woke up, and The work of CBEC takes place in this glancing at the McDonalds restaurant in the context, where medical realities define the parking area, remembered that Karachi is a conversation, and where poverty and the place where East and West sometimes social dynamics that play out in families meet. When the driver turned the ignition speak louder than the neatly plotted key, the first sound was the Disneyland tune theories of my academic texts. “It’s a small world, after all.” I felt certain My 2009 trip to Karachi brought this would be another fascinating visit to a me directly to CBEC, where I was returning place that reflects some Western influences to teach a seminar in Law, Medicine while continually reasserting the and Contemporary Bioethics. The students foundations of its own culture. Continued on page 4 My first trip to Karachi in 2004 was an adventure that showed me, in a short week, some of the many faces of Pakistan. I visited the campus of Aga Khan University and was also asked to speak at the Sindh Institute for Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), where the new Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC) was being inaugurated. My encounter with downtown Karachi revealed a vibrant, big city that contained a cacophony of sounds and smells, with traffic alternately surging Dr. Paul Lombardo’s Pakistani attire being admired by students in CBEC and freezing with congestion. In the midst * Professor of Law, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, SIUT, Pakistan Page 1 Bioethics Links cbecSIUT Pakistan Volume 5, Issue 2 (December 2009) The Hidden Jewel that is CBEC Humza Aasim Yusuf * In the twilight zone between doing my O Dr. Farhat Moazam, the founding levels examination and waiting for the chairperson of CBEC, who was very result, I applied to the Centre of welcoming and gave me an overview of the Biomedical Ethics and Research (CBEC) goals of CBEC and its activities. of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Over the course of the next two weeks, I Transplantation (SIUT) in Karachi, to be helped with mostly clerical work, such as allowed to work as an intern for two updating and correcting the library weeks. Happily, I was accepted. When I catalogue for both books and videos, helping arrived from Lahore in Karachi on July 09, to clear up and sort the contents of filing I wasn’t entirely sure what I would be doing cabinets and so on. In addition, Dr. Moazam in CBEC, but had heard great things about gave me a variety of literature and research it from several people. CBEC is Pakistan’s Continued on page 6 primary and only centre for Biomedical CBEC Launches Masters in Bioethics (MBE) Program Ethics, a relatively unexplored field in After its successful Postgraduate Diploma Program in Biomedical Pakistan. On arrival in CBEC, I was first Ethics (PGD), CBEC launched the Masters in Bioethics (MBE) program in November 2009. This two year program consists of on greeted by the friendly faces of Mr. Ali Bin campus and distance learning components, and a thesis. The MBE aims at developing academic leadership in bioethics for Pakistan Ayjaz (the Webmaster) and Ms. and the region. Antoinette David (the Administrative Students enrolled in the MBE Class of 2011 are: ! Aamir Jafarey, FRCS Assistant). Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, Karachi ! Anika Khan, BA I had pictured a boring office with tons READyslexics, Karachi of files and people busy at work, seeing as ! Bushra Shirazi, FCPS Ziauddin University, Karachi this is the only such centre in Pakistan. In ! Saima Pervaiz Iqbal, FCPS reality, what I discovered was an incredibly Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad The first on campus “Foundation Module” ran from November friendly place, with smiling, happy people 02-13, 2009, and consisted of five courses: Philosophy and who care deeply about what they are Bioethics, Religion and Bioethics, Humanities and Bioethics, Law and Bioethics, and Introduction to Contemporary Bioethics doing. They seemed imbued with an Teaching Faculty of Foundation Module: ! Dr. Abdul Wahab Suri almost missionary zeal to further the Assistant Professor, Philosophy, Karachi University study of what is right and what is wrong ! Dr. Asif Aslam Farrukhi Writer and Critic, UNICEF, Karachi and how we understand this, not just (as I ! Dr. Farhat Moazam later learned) within the boundaries of Chairperson, CBEC, SIUT ! Dr. Khalid Masud medicine but also within the larger society. Chairman, Council of Islamic Ideology, Islamabad I was introduced to Dr. Aamir Jafarey, ! Dr. Manzoor Ahmed Professor and Chairman of the Board, Usman Institute of an integral member of CBEC who showed Technology, Karachi ! Dr. Mohsin Naqvi me around the department and told me Member, Council of Islamic Ideology, Islamabad what I would be doing a mixture of filing ! Dr. Paul Lombardo Professor of Law, Georgia State University, USA and cataloguing of the teaching material ! Ms. Sharmeen Khan which is used in their educational Director, Legal and General Counsel, Pfizer Pakistan programs. I was also privileged to meet *Student of Aitchison College, Lahore, Pakistan Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, SIUT, Pakistan Page 2 Bioethics Links cbecSIUT Pakistan Volume 5, Issue 2 (December 2009) Finding Hope in Unexpected Places Saamia Noorali * I came across Dr. Moazam’s book the city. All my conversations seemed to Kidney Transplantation in a Muslim end up about land mafias, load shedding Society: A Study in Bioethics, Culture, and with no electricity for hours, water Religion while standing in line at the shortages, and endless examples they felt University of Virginia (UVA) bookstore. I justified their desire to leave Pakistan and was so intrigued by the subject and its immigrate elsewhere. Unable to find valid author that I immediately went home and counterarguments, I quietly accepted their Googled her. The search results were pessimism as truth. endless, yet after only a few articles I was Therefore I walked into CBEC with a thoroughly mesmerized by all her particular view of the country, and the accomplishments. It did not take long for poverty of the patients I saw seemed to me to send Dr. Moazam an email informing confirm the negative opinions I had formed. her that I was an undergraduate student in On my first day in the clinic, I saw a middle- UVA, and requesting an externship at the aged man bring a five year-old girl in kidney Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Culture failure bloated enough to look as though (CBEC) in the Sindh Institute of Urology she was nine months pregnant. As he and Transplantation (SIUT), in Karachi. spoke to the doctor, the father explained She responded that this would be possible how he had traveled two days just to bring and we agreed on a two week period during his daughter to the hospital. As he was the the summer of 2009. She would arrange sole bread-winner of his family, taking time for me to spend time participating in CBEC off from his job as a mazdoor (laborer) had activities and, due to my interest in a cost him and his family 150 rupees each career in medicine, would also arrange to day. Continued on page 6 have me accompany Dr. Ali, a pediatric PGD Class of 2010 nephrologist, in the clinics and wards of ! Agha Riaz Ahmed, MBBS SIUT. To be honest, I did not know what to Chandka Medical College, Larkana ! Ambreen Usmani, MBBS, Mphil expect from the experience but I began Bahria University Medical and Dental College, Karachi looking forward to what I felt would be a ! Ghulam Murtaza Gondal, FCPS unique summer in Pakistan. Foundation University Medical College, Rawalpindi ! Mariam Hassan, MBBS Although my family is originally from Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital, Lahore ! Pakistan, I have spent most of my life Naveed Mazhar Bhatti, MSc Hamdard College of Medicine and Dentistry, Karachi outside that country. All my perceptions ! Naima Zamir, FCPS about Pakistan have therefore been National Institute of Child Health, Karachi ! Nida Wahid Bashir, FCPS derived from family discussions or news Patel Hospital, Karachi pieces about the country.