Dr Aasim Yusuf

Early life and background

Yusuf was born in London in 1962 and lived in England until he was nearly 15. His mother was a committed Pakistani who never wanted to live in England, and his father never wanted to move back to Pakistan. His mother moved back to Pakistan in late 1976, and he joined her a little later. [1]

He attended school in Rawalpindi for a year. He had no clear aim in life after school. As a teenager he wanted to join the Pakistan Air Force as a fighter pilot. [1]

Education

Yusuf took O levels, which were then called Senior Cambridge, and completed FSC at Government College. His mother wanted him to become a doctor, and he did not know what else to do. He went to King Edward Medical College. [1]

He says the curriculum he studied was probably from the 1930s or 1940s. He says the clinical years of medical school were the part he enjoyed most. He moved into the hostel in the last two or three years of medical school. He qualified in medicine in the summer of 1986, after strikes and closures delayed the course. He says Aga Khan opened while they were at King Edward, and that to some extent King Edward has lost its preeminence. [1]

Early medical career

Yusuf did a year's house job and then worked for another year at a hospital. He took the PLAB test to work in the UK and moved there in 1989. He first trained in general internal medicine in the UK. He chose gastroenterology as his sub-specialty, partly because he liked procedures. [1]

Return to Pakistan

Yusuf says he always intended to return to Pakistan and never felt he belonged in England. He recalls being advised to apply to a hospital that Imran Khan was opening. A professor of medicine who is a cousin of Imran Khan wrote to him, and he was offered a part-time post as an endoscopist. [1]

He says he did not know that you were supposed to negotiate your salary. He says that coming back to Pakistan in the way he did was foolish in retrospect. [1]

Shaukat Khanum

Yusuf joined Shaukat Khanum in December 1994, four weeks before the hospital opened. He says they did not have electricity for six months, and that he decided where the electrical sockets would go. He says it was not just managers deciding these things, and that it was driven very much by physicians. He says they furnished a house as an inpatient unit and that they were 10 consultants and 10 junior doctors. [1]

He has been medical director and then chief medical officer since 2004. The post of chief medical officer is a board appointment. He says the role oversees clinical matters across the whole group. He spends about half his time on clinical work and half on administration. He has also been in charge of recruitment for many years. [1]

He says he enjoys clinical work and that endoscopy needs constant practice to keep manual dexterity. He recalled being in the curious position of having to refer someone with a mass in the large intestine. He says he would accept stepping down if the institution asked him to. [1]

Hospital operations

Yusuf says the cornerstone of the hospital is that every patient receives the same treatment, and that doctors and nurses are blinded to the patient's financial status. He says the hospital was the first in Pakistan to install a PET CT scanner, around 2007 or 2008. He says they obtained JCI re-accreditation for Lahore in 2021. He says the organisation became the first in Pakistan and only the second in the world to achieve JCI enterprise accreditation. [1]

He says about 45,000 people come to them each year and that this is reduced to about 12,000 new cancer patients they see. He says patients who are refused treatment are offered counselling by a psychologist. He says theirs is the only organisation in Pakistan with a training programme in palliative medicine. He says they run the country's largest population-based cancer registry, called the Punjab Cancer Registry. [1]

He says they have about a 20% attrition rate for nursing and that they hire qualified nurses and designate them as trainee nurses for one year. He says the hospital information system is homegrown. He says the hospital moved from paper to electronic records almost 20 years ago. [1]

Views

Yusuf says about 180,000 new cancer patients are diagnosed in Pakistan each year, and that there is a need for about 20 tertiary care hospitals the size of the hospital in Lahore to deal with all the cancer in Pakistan. He says common cancers in Pakistan occur 10 to 15 years younger than in the West and that the median age of women presenting with breast cancer in Pakistan is 42. He says lung cancer is rising in Pakistan because smoking spread later than in the West. He thinks the increasing numbers of patients are due to survival from other diseases and better awareness. [1]

He says cancer treatment was once called slash and burn. He says radiation has become immensely more accurate and targeted, and that targeted cancer therapy acts on cancer cells without damaging the other surrounding cells. He says some treatments can cost upwards of a million dollars per patient. [1]

He says Pakistan has a shortage of over 2 million nurses. He says one of the hardest things is persuading people to return to Pakistan. He says AI might ease brain drain if robots could see patients in place of foreign-qualified doctors. He says they do not want to be research colonized. He says the degree of regulation has improved and could certainly be better. [1]

He says healthcare at an appropriate standard is an expensive business. He says he has always felt Pakistan is on an upward trajectory, and that 70 to 75 years is nothing in the life of a nation. He thinks the future is bright. [1]

Personal life

Yusuf has two sons. They lived in Pakistan until they were 18. Both went to university in England and are still there. One studied economics at UCL and went into chartered accountancy. His sons have repeatedly said they intend to return to Pakistan. [1]

Timeline

1962

Born in London.[1]

1976

His mother moved back to Pakistan in late 1976, and he joined her a little later.[1]

1986

Qualified in medicine in the summer.[1]

1989

Moved to the UK.[1]

1994

Joined Shaukat Khanum in December, four weeks before the hospital opened.[1]

2004

Became medical director, later chief medical officer.[1]

2021

Said to have obtained JCI re-accreditation for Lahore.[1]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. How Shaukat Khanum built world-class cancer care from nothing . Thought Behind Things , 2023-10-20.