Student Focus Meets Dr. Fariha Shah

Dr. Fareeha Shah is a known physiotherapist. Currently she serving is at Institute of Allied Sciences, Fatima Memorial Hospital Lahore. She graduated from Simmons College Boston USA. Student focus representatives Safa Moeed and Syeda Anoshia Rizvi joined Dr. Fariha Shah in her office  and the conversation started.

  

How are You?

I am fine Alhamdulillah.

Q1. Tell us about yourself?

Well, I grew up in America; I was 11 years old when my family shifted there. I did Bachelors in Pre-Physical Therapy, then I did DPT (Doctor of Physical Therapy) which is an additional 3 years course from Simmons College, Boston USA. Currently, I am providing my services as Head of Department at Fatima Memorial Hospital’s Physical Therapy Department on both academic and clinical sides.

Q2. For what duration have you been in US and why did you come to Pakistan?

I lived there for 17 years then I came to Pakistan because my husband loves Lahore and I thought it’s not a bad idea to come back home.

Q3. When did you start practicing?

I started my practice right after finishing my degree.

Q4. How did you come to this profession? What prompted you to pursue your career in physiotherapy?

There is actually a story behind which motivated me to choose this profession. When I was 15 I think, a neighbor of ours sustained a stroke and became bed ridden. She was shifted to a rehab from where she received different kind of therapies which included Physical Therapy as well. So during this whole span of her treatment, I saw her transforming from a complete bed ridden person to a healthy mobile individual. Moreover, my father was very sensitive about the fact of children taking care of their parents in their old age and he wanted one of his kids to see him in the hospital on a regular basis. So considering the situation, I thought this is what I want to do; I want to spend time with my patients and I want to bring them to a level which is the same as their prior level of functioning. That’s why I chose Physical Therapy.

Q5. Apart from this job, where else are you rendering your services?

I am teaching B.Sc and DPT in Fatima Memorial Hospital and t-DPT at Riphah University and University of Health Sciences. Apart from teaching I do private practice as well.

Q6. What is the best thing about physiotherapy?

It’s actually the thing that motivated me. We eliminate pain and dysfunction; promote active independent lifestyle and functional level of every patient that comes in. The idea of letting the person to feel the same as they did when they were pain and disability free is actually the effort of physical therapy. We are healers in true sense because our treatments have minimum amount of side effects. We cause a change in the patient’s function without putting the patient at risk only if we are practicing with right competencies and with proper knowledge.

Q7. Private practice of government house ship, which is better?

I was eleven when I left the country so I don’t know what government service is like. I do understand that in Pakistan there is a great trend to like government service however I don’t really have any idea about it. I am part of a private practice set up and I can speak for private practice as those professionals are in the market and they have got the potential to compete against each other. The room to do good for the profession exist in a great amount in private set ups because we are trying to give a level to our institution/organization while providing services at a higher standard so it doesn’t only benefit the institution/organization but benefits the profession as well.

Q8. Teacher, administrator or clinician, at which post do you enjoy working the most?

It’s a tie between teacher and clinician. I love transferring knowledge to my students because I think it’s a responsibility of every teacher who thinks that he/she has received good education. Being a clinician you are a healer, your hands have to provide good care and get the patient better and that’s what I am training to the students as well. It’s very beneficial for the students to see the practice going in actuality on the patients. I like doing a lot of administrative work but I think being a teacher and a clinician supersedes that and has always been the end target that has to be delivered correctly.

Q9. Taking into consideration your hectic schedule, how do you cope and allocate time for your social life?

That is a big challenge. I am a mother of a 7 year old, a wife and a daughter-in-law. It’s very difficult actually. My family, particularly my mother-in-law, has always created a very facilitating environment for me. She is the one who gave me so much room that I got to do all my tasks with maximum efficiency. Along with that I take care of the household environment as well. For social life, weekends are good enough. I have tons of friends in medical field and outside that. I think one has to seek the time to bond with friends and I do find that. It’s just in pockets here and there.

Q10. What are the common problems that physiotherapists are facing in our country? What measures do you suggest to help overcome these problems in future generations?

The biggest common problem is that we think of ourselves first and not the profession. I am not talking about all the physical therapists but unfortunately majority is like that. What our profession requires for the time being is that we need to think for the betterment of profession and uplifting the standards of education in our country. Though there are so many institutions where higher education is being offered, I would definitely say that there is still a need to generate some enthusiasm within the learners to learn at a level which would make them a better clinician than they have been and that is the only thing that will get us the name that is required. We need respect in the community and the country as lot of things haven’t gone correctly in the past and that would only come by becoming better knowledgeable clinician. The knowledge which teachers are delivering has to be up to the mark so that students learn in the best manner. Those that are working in the clinics already must ensure that the skills they are teaching to newcomers are up to the international standards. Until we do that, we are lagging behind.

Q11. List 5 traits that a successful physiotherapist needs? Among these which one is your strongest trait?

We need to be knowledgeable, dedicated and very sincere to our profession. We have to think above ourselves, need to be disciplined and perform all the learned techniques and maneuvers in the most official manner. I try to work on each of them, I am disciplined and I think discipline is the key actually. I am always seeking knowledge. I don’t think that back in 2004 the degree which I got is enough for me to survive on. For every patient, I go back and figure out if anything has come out for the diagnosis and anything from which the patient can benefit from.

Q12. Do you think that female physiotherapists face more difficulties as compared to male physiotherapists? Why it’s a general notion that males prove to be better physiotherapists?

I tell you a story. Back in 1998, when I was in pre-physical therapy, I told my advisor that I want to pursue physical therapy.  She asked me the same question, “Don’t you think you are too little to handle physical therapy?” I didn’t answer her at that moment. I went out, met a few physical therapy clinicians who were the most skilled people and came back with a number of people working as physical therapists. I gave her the idea about the manual techniques that they were performing on patients. She got surprised and despite of being a Harvard student she said, “This is something I haven’t learnt throughout my career!” The thing is, yes! The general perception is that and it has to be changed. It’s not the physique or the gender, it’s the knowledge and competency that drives the notion how strong or how weak you are. Female physical therapists in Pakistan need themselves to become competent in the manual handling. The decision making avenues are difficult for us and we find hurdles in projecting ourselves into the streamline and saying yes we are as strong as the male counterparts are. It’s not that we are trying to outdo the male members; it’s just that both genders make up the profession and both should play a key role in the decision making and intuitions of the decisions and all. We need to take a stronger initiative and become proactive, males are proactive because they can go out in the market and roam about a little bit more than females. On the other hand, we also have household responsibilities while males don’t have that much. We can beat the male dominance in our community by becoming knowledgeable and skillful.

Q13. What services you think a physiotherapist can provide in case of emergencies?

If it’s a road side accident, that’s a different thing. Having the knowledge of what could be life threatening in an emergency situation and taking the right step to prevent a disaster like death is something a physical therapist should be capable of. We should know CPR and have the first aid training so that we could take the right steps at right time. Through our evaluation and assessment, we recognize something called ‘Red Flag’ that is part of our examination component and every single one of us should be absolutely competent in recognizing those red flags. Red flags basically indicate that this an emergency situation which is out of the scope of our practice and has to be referred out to the concerned professionals, hence damage can be prevented. Then there are ‘Physical Therapy Related Emergencies’. We should be well aware of those and of patient’s presentation at each level of healing of the tissues, each level of pathology that we are treating and taking the right step.

Q14. Since its formation, PPTA has been in dormancy as happened again after last physiotherapy rally and DPT course approval, for how long will its silence lasts?

Let’s talk about some positive points first. Until the congregation of all physical therapy professionals under one umbrella called PPTA, we were scattered at different places. There were multiple societies/organizations and people were doing their own things. By the formation of PPTA, one good thing happened that they came together. In its infancy, there was a lot of work that needs to be done from the office bearers as well as the members. Yes I agree that after winning elections a silent period prevailed for quite a sometime and it’s still going on. To break the ice, I would advise the members to become proactive in noting their concerns about what needs to be done and what’s not happening rather being critical and negative. Our efforts have to go beyond politics and we should implement those words into reality that were being said during the campaign and election time. In order to wake them up, we need to be proactive as well. PPTA is just like a baby and baby will only start taking step not only in the right supervision but also by the self will.

Q15. House jobs have been proposed in the HEC syllabus but still no firm announcement to date has been heard, what PPTA is doing for that?

In DPT curriculum, house job is after the completion of the degree. The curriculum was approved by HEC last year so we still have five more years to go for that batch to get house jobs. To achieve that goal PPTA should start working on it and make sure that it should be implemented on our institutions sooner than the 5 years so that the students get their enrollment in house jobs but this is too soon to say. PPTA goals are inclusive of implementation of a proper service structure, house job affiliations and all that. I don’t know about other institutions but Fatima Memorial College is providing a merit based house jobs to its graduates. 

Q16. PPTA has mission statement of its academic support for physiotherapy institutions yet none of them has any permanent faculty, what do you say?

I would say one thing for sure. Again, we have to work hard, you will come to know when you become professionals that the society which is made up of these office bearers would be able to perform their best when facilitated at institutional level. Those institutions where permanent faculty doesn’t exist also need to take active part in vocalizing about the number of teaching hours and clinical hours that are needed to be provided to the students. The proposals need to be presented to the right concerned parties so that the work gets started. Apart from PPTA, the employees of the institution need to be vocalizing. I am not saying nobody has done anything, work has been done but it needs both inside and outside forces to make it known to the decision makers for the decision to be implemented.

Q17. What is the progress of Physiotherapy Council for which rally was arranged?

The progress is very slow unfortunately because something is stuck somewhere at the ministry level. The files are going to the due course but you know how things are in Pakistan. The federal ministry of education is resolving to provincial and then there is allocation into different components. Such things are causing hurdles but I do hope that this would be implemented as soon as possible.

 

Q18. MashAllah you have graduated from US, how would you compare their education system as well as health care system with ours? What reforms are needed to be brought here?

Should we make a comparison between Pakistan and America? America is the ideal prototype of many fields is it engineering, law or medical. Comparison is actually unfair. Their physical therapy services are so grounded that a patient admitted to an acute care setting cannot be discharged without the physical therapist signature on his discharge note so the field has got such recognition there. The standards of education and practice are very high. Here, unfortunately, what we lack in is that we are still battling to provide a better undergraduate education. There, they say that one has to get post graduate or high level degree in order to practice as a physical therapist. This means that there should be higher level of competency when it comes to handling the patients. Until recently we haven’t really focused on getting good at manual skills. Luckily there are many foreign based physical therapists returning to Pakistan but their existence is so little. Many of us tend to remain stereotypical physical therapists. We rely more on machines than techniques. We need to get this frame of mind changed that physical therapy is not all machine related, it includes machines where needed but majority are manual techniques so  when this mind set will change Pakistan physical therapy would come up to the standards which are set up by America but no comparison at the moment.

Q19. Do you think that our curriculum needs up gradation? Why our curriculum does not match the international standards?

The DPT curriculum approved by HEC meets that gap because the curriculum was made with one prime premise in mind that is to remove all those difficulties which our students face when they are taught the curricula which is deficient and doesn’t match the international standards. This DPT curriculum will provide the students with a wider scope of knowledge InshAllah.

Q20. What would be your suggestion/advice to those physiotherapy students who are planning to go abroad for higher education?

Study hard. Become true learners and try to grab anybody who can teach you manual skills, examination, evaluation and assessment. Learn documentation because these are the things that they will look in for you which unfortunately many of us lack in Pakistan. When such students go abroad they struggle with these because they don’t know how to approach it as they don’t have the knowledge. So keeping in mind the current trend in physical therapy, focus should be on getting you able to do everything.

Q21. As we all know, you are blessed with an adorable daughter MashAllah, would you recommend your daughter to opt for this profession or not?

Of course 100 percent! If she wishes to go in physical therapy, yes! But I would strongly influence her to practice at the standards of America not Pakistan. When she will be ready to go to college, I would definitely play my part in facilitating her at my utmost.

Q22. Okay tell me honestly, MashAllah you are doing well in this profession, have you felt any regrets, at any stage of your life regarding the choice of this profession?

I will be very honest! Yes! When I came back to Pakistan, for a moment, I thought that maybe I made a mistake. I was surprised to see my fellow health care professionals’ attitude towards physical therapy. They misunderstood our profession to be massage therapist and technicians. They misunderstood us for taking orders without having knowledge of underlying pathophysiology and physiotherapy treatment. At that time, I thought that it seems like an uphill battle for which I would have to fight for God knows how many years, nobody understands the gravity of how strong my profession is and how much respect a physical therapist gains outside Pakistan. My friends in other countries always spoke very highly about the prestige of the profession. At that time I regretted for a while that perhaps it wasn’t a better thing to opt for but then I asked myself, “What is it that I can do?  I can’t get myself stuck in negativity, how can I prove to them that physical therapy is not what they tend to think of!” Then I started my efforts from FM College, I proved my worth by providing education at a higher level, I also started doing clinical practice. After a lapse of time, I saw that view changing in front of my eyes. Gradually people start understanding that those who are practicing with knowledge and skills are not technicians and are not the ones who are to be ordered. They can make right functional changes for the pain and disability to go away. Right now I have no regrets. Alhamdulilah!

Q23. Any credits you want to pay to someone for your achievements?

My daddy is the one who receives every bit of credit. I owe my life to him. He is the one who gave me confidence and taught me that I have to live with my head held high. My mother was my perfect companion, no doubt, she equally played a very strong role but daddy was the motivator. 

Q24. We all have some dreams, we all have ambitions to reach excellence, what are your goals and do you think that you are heading in the right direction?

My role is to provide physical therapy practice at international standard and that is my ultimate goal and Inshallah we will achieve it. Though it will take some time to happen but I am very sure that I am heading in the right direction.

Q25. Who do idealize in this field and why?

I idealize my lot of teachers but unfortunately all are outside Pakistan. Here some people have very good knowledge and they are trying their best to provide the services and I give them credit for this. Those who are trained outside Pakistan and providing their services back to their mother land should be acknowledged for their efforts.

Q26. What is your opinion about Student Focus?

Excellent effort! I think that you guys are actively uplifting the morale of your fellow professionals and making them aware of the services the community is offering. It’s a healthy and wonderful activity and you people should definitely keep it up!

Q27. Any message you want to give our readers?

Be eager learners and become sincere physical therapists. Think of the profession first and then yourself.

Thanks for your courteous time Mam!

My pleasure.

That was an impressive session with Dr. Fariha Shah. We wish him prosperity in his life and profession.

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By Safa Moeed and Syeda Anoshia Rizvi

Student Focus

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