Student Focus Meets Dr.Beenish Zaman (Physiotherapist)

Beenish Zaman is a known physiotherapist. She works at WAPDA Hospital Lahore. She is K.E.M.U graduate of 2003 batch. Student focus representative Safa Moeed joined Beenish Zaman at a restaurant at Gulberg on lunch and the conversation started.

1. How are you?

Ans. I am fine Alhumdulillah.

2. When did you start practicing?

Ans. I started my practice in the middle of 2004. It’s been 7 years up till now.

3. How did you take physiotherapy as a profession?

Ans. I came to physiotherapy after recommendation from one of my uncle who was teaching at AIMC at that time and he advised me to opt for this profession.

4. What do you think who are the better therapists? Males or females?

Ans. Both. I can’t make any discrimination on the basis of gender because a physiotherapist is a practitioner or a clinician first and the gender comes afterwards and I think as long as you are skilled enough in your field, the gender issue is completely ignored.

5. Where and when did you graduate from?

Ans. I graduated from School of Physiotherapy Mayo Hospital in 2003.

6. Are you interested in politics? What kind of politics are you interested in?

Ans. Yes I am very much interested in every sort of politics starting right from the national politics up to the local politics concerned in physiotherapy and I think that politics is the path through which you can bring any difference and can influence the mode of thinking of the society.

7. Whom would you vote in the coming elections?

Ans. I will vote a party with clear visionary policies for our country in the next 20 years.

8. Is there any impact of Pakistani politics on medical field? Or physiotherapy in particular?

Ans. Yes it has a strong impact on medical as well as the other fields related to it because if we choose good, educated and respectable politicians to be our leaders and beholding our higher public offices, only they can understand what are the problems our professionals are facing and they would also like everyone to hold their positions in their respective manner.

9. Who do you idealize in your field and why?

Ans. Well, I don’t say that there is one person in my field whom I idealize, there are many which include my seniors, juniors, those who have upgraded their knowledge and those whom I see working with their patients and the patients speaking high of them so I do take influences from many places like if I talk about my profession, some of the professionals are teachers while the others are clinicians so the inspiration comes from both the aspects.

10. What setup you like to work in? What about the hospital environment you are serving in?

Ans. My hospital environment is perfectly fine. I enjoy a lot working there as there is much interaction between us and the other medical professionals; we discuss our cases and make mutual decisions about our patients and I think that it’s the best thing a physiotherapist can look for to get a due recognition in his/her working place.

11. What is the best thing about physiotherapy?

Ans. Well, it’s a field in which you have a vast number of patients from different fields to work with. The patients are from different specialties so you get lots of diversity and dealing with such a diversity of cases is the best thing about physiotherapy.

12. Private practice or Government house ship? What is better?

Ans. I would say both. Government practice is good in the sense that you can give maximum to your patients in a limited pay. On the other hand, private practice is entirely different as most of the time you are serving those patients who can afford. In government practice you can work with both kinds of patients.

13. Do you teach too?

Ans. No I don’t teach.

14. Why don’t you teach?

Ans. I don’t teach because my job is mostly oriented towards hospitals so I was never in the vicinity of the teaching department. May be in future if I will get an opportunity I will definitely opt for teaching as well.

15. Any teacher you liked the most?

Ans. There were many teachers who have very fine characters and I gained a lot of knowledge from them but Dr. Samina Zaman from Pathology was the one I liked the most. She is a very nice woman. Then we had many others from physiotherapy. One of them was Hafiz Asim. He taught us quite well.

16. Favorite subject?

Ans. I liked physiotherapy practice as a subject which was of about 1 year.

17. Did you aim for being a physiotherapist or was it by chance/luck?

Ans. To opt for this profession was one of my relative’s highest opinions and after coming to this profession I never look back or regretted.

18. What personalities are you inspired from?

Ans. The personality whom I am inspired from would be the inspiration of every Muslim around and He is our Holy Prophet (PBUH). I think if we start following Him, we don’t need to follow anyone. He is a complete code of conduct for the humanity.

19. Any quote you like the most and remember?

Ans. Allah helps those who help themselves.

20. How do you define life in a single line being a (a) A physiotherapist (b) A women (c) A Pakistani (d) A Muslim.

Ans. 

(a) Well I would say life is very beautiful even if you are a woman or a physiotherapist. You can work at ease and can enjoy rest of your day.

(b) Being a woman its good because you work half of the day of your job, you don’t have to cope for any sort of emergencies and you can enjoy your personal life for the rest of the day.

(c) I feel very proud to be a Pakistani citizen and I am grateful to Allah that I was born here in Pakistan.

(d) I think that’s the best religion. Though I am no one to pass any comment about what religion is about but I would say that I am a very proud Muslim.

21. Do you believe in horoscopes?

Ans. Yes I do read horoscopes but I don’t put much of my belief in them.

22. What is your star?

Ans. It’s Taurus.

23. Are you married?

Ans. No I am not.Not yet!

24. When do you plan to get married?

Ans. My planning includes my parents as well so before giving any answer about this question, I think I need to put in a little discussion with them.

25. When you get married, would you want any of your children join physiotherapy as a profession?

Ans. Every human being has his/her own life and they should have their own choices to make so I won’t pressurize anyone. If any of them gets inspired or interested, I will support them and I would be happy but I won’t choose anyone’s profession.

26. How many siblings do you have? And what do they do?

Ans. I have 3 brothers MashAllah and I am the eldest one. My elder brother is a mechanical engineer, next brother has recently completed his Bachelors from University of East London and the third one is in metric.

27. Do you agree that profession becomes passion or passion becomes profession?

Ans. It can be both the ways, your profession at times can become your passion and your passion can also lead you to a good profession. It’s just what comes first in your life, either profession or passion.

28. If you were not a physiotherapist, what might have you been either?

Ans. I would have rather opted for interior designing if I would not have been a physiotherapist.

29. What do you think where Pakistan stands in physiotherapy as an essential part of health care system?

Ans. In Pakistan, physiotherapy is a very important part of the medical management. Unfortunately, at some places, people don’t have any know how about this profession but on the other places where people are aware of it, they consider it as an essential component of the health care system.

30. Do you think that research is important in medical field?

Ans. Research is extremely important. That’s the only way by which the field can prosper. Without writing your papers, expert’s opinions and evidence based practice, no profession can prosper.

31. What is the importance of research in physiotherapy?

Ans. It’s equally important in physiotherapy but unfortunately it is lying behind a little bit throughout the world. Especially in our country, it needs a lot to be discovered.

32. Any research you did? What was that all about? What did you find?

Ans. Yes I did a research at Bachelor’s level. That was about comparison of proprioceptive neuromuscular techniques v/s reverse mobilization techniques in frozen shoulder patients and I concluded that reverse mobilization give better and earlier results.

33. Share your opinion about physiotherapy? Is it a demanding profession or a paying?

Ans. Its both. It does pay you back and it is in demand of your records as well.

34. Any literary tastes?

Ans. Yes I read a lot of books in English and Urdu. Most of the time it’s about fiction and I do read Islamic books as well.

35. Which writer or poet you read the most? And why?

Ans. I am not too fond of poetry but I think Allama Iqbal was the best poet so far. In writers I like Sidney Sheldon and Umera Ahmed the most.

36. Tell us about your achievements?

Ans. Well I would not say that I was someone who was always going for positions but I enjoyed a lot during my whole educational career because I was more oriented towards gaining knowledge and Alhumdulillah I gained a lot of knowledge about the profession, life and everything in those 4 years of my studies and the journey is still on.

37. What kind of patients/problems/diseases you encounter frequently in your practice?

Ans. Every sort of patient because in our hospital we get patients from every specialty but most of the time the origin is from musculoskeletal.

38. What sort of patients you find interesting?

Ans. I would call the patients of musculoskeletal disorders as interesting ones because in those patients, we are very well aware of the course of treatment and the disease and the outcomes of our treatment but if we are treating patients with neurological disorders, at times we don’t know that when are we going to get results of our treatment. Sometimes the patient responds very well and that comes as a surprise to you.

39. Where have you served apart from Wapda Hospital?

Ans. I worked for 2 years at Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital and then I came to Wapda Hospital.

40. Which you liked the most?

Ans. If I would talk of the learning part then I learned a lot at Ghurki as they have the best orthopedic team and they are doing the maximum number of surgeries over there and if I would talk of the environment, the facilities or about the autonomy of being a physiotherapist, I enjoyed those things more over here at Wapda Hospital.

41. Pakistani people are more oriented towards MBBS & BDS but less towards Physiotherapy & Allied Health Sciences, why?

Ans. I think that sort of changes come along with the passage of time. When we have more people coming in FSc Pre-Medical, at that time if they see around other professions also apart from medicine, the will make a choice but if they don’t see any of the physiotherapists or allied health professionals working around them, where would they get their inspirations from? Once they will see them making any difference in the medical field, that’s where they would get motivation and I do encounter such things every off and on when I see a young kid coming to our department with an elder patient like his/her mother/father, once they are there, they see treating the patients, they feel giving relief to them, they would ask you questions and they would also like to come in your profession. That’s the way people get inspired.

42. Are you satisfied with the current educational standards set forth for training of future doctors? How can we improve them?

Ans. Not so satisfied. Lots of improvement is required. I think the knowledge given at Bachelors level should be upgraded and curriculums should be made in advance with them. There were a lot of problems which I had to face when I was a student. At times, we were the ones to go forward and get our classes arranged whereas it should be the other way around. When a student comes to your institution he/she is the faculty’s responsibility in every form so that’s the way improvement has to come.

43. What do you foresee about the future of physiotherapy in Pakistan?

Ans. Well I see a very bright future of physiotherapists in the next coming 10 or 20 years because I have seen lots of changes happening from the time when I was a fresh graduate till the present day. In this span of 7 years, physiotherapists have strived a lot for the betterment of their profession and they have also achieved their targets to some extents.

44. What is the main issue or need of physiotherapists in Pakistan?

Ans. A proper job structure and establishment of Physiotherapy Council is the only thing which can answer all questions, queries and demands of physiotherapists.

45. How can we improve standards of health care system in Pakistan?

Ans. I think till the date, there is improvement. Actually the number of health care professionals v/s the number of patients is too low like we have hundreds and thousands of patients whereas the health care professionals are very small in number in comparison. Their number should be increased in order to uplift the standards of health care system.

46. Any credits you want to pay to someone?

Ans. I would like to pay my credits to my mother the most because she is the reason behind of what I am today and what I will be tomorrow. I learned a lot from her and she is the one who supported me the most throughout my life.

47. Any dire wish?

Ans. Well I have endless wishes. By every coming day I wish something new but my dire wish would be to see my profession at the highest.

48. Any regrets regarding your life or profession?

Ans. I don’t regret things about my life or profession. I never do that. I always accept them as they are because Allah is the one who chose this destiny for me so I hardly regret things. Instead I try to create everything around me according to what I wish for. Alhumdulillah I achieved everything which I would not been able to access if I was in other profession.

49. Did you attend the National Physiotherapy Forum meeting and rally? What was your experience?

Ans. I did attend both. Experience was good and the best feeling about the meeting was that we had representatives from the whole country and that was the first time ever in the whole years when I saw physiotherapists of Pakistan sitting together at one forum. As far as the rally is concerned, it was great. There were times when I wanted to run away as it was very hectic to walk in the heat and that kind of environment but I took my inspiration from the outsiders who were there from Karachi and other provinces. They were more enthusiastic than us. They walked through the whole rally and seeing them, my morale was boosted to the highest.

50. How did you hear about Student Focus?

Ans. I came to know about Student Focus when I was once going through the Pharmacy lawn to take one of my classes in the Pharmacology Department and I saw many posters over there and I saw a copy too that was given to me by a student. Then I saw an organized form of Student Focus on Facebook.

51. Have you read our last two editions online?

Ans. Yes I have.

52. What is your opinion about Student Focus?

Ans. My opinion is that the students are at their best in that newsletter and I would like to be any help to them in future and all I can say is keep it up! Good job done!

53. Any suggestions you want to give for the betterment of Student Focus?

Ans. I would like to advise everyone who is behind Student focus to keep their spirits high because whenever you start with a new thing, it’s the pioneers who have to face a lot of problems. So I would rather suggest them to be consistent in their efforts because a day is going to come when they will be paid back.

54. Any message you want to give to physiotherapists/doctors/common readers/Pakistani nation?

Ans. My message would be that we all medical professionals are in a very noble profession which has highest bearings in our religion as well so our profession is about is dealing with humanity and relieving them of their pain and I would ask them to do complete justice to their profession.

55. Thank you Ma'm for your precious time.

Ans. It was a pleasure meeting Student Focus.

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