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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E009417 - Haider, Syed Zafar (1927 - 2017)
Title:
Haider, Syed Zafar (1927 - 2017)
Author:
Syed A Kazmi
Identifier:
RCS: E009417
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2018-02-26

2018-11-21
Contributor:
S Z Haider’s family
Description:
Obituary for Haider, Syed Zafar (1927 - 2017), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Haider, Syed Zafar
Date of Birth:
27 December 1927
Place of Birth:
Lahore
Date of Death:
3 August 2017
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MB BS Lahore 1950

FRCS 1957
Details:
Syed Zafar Haider was professor of surgery at King Edward Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan. He was born on 27 December 1927 in Lahore; the family’s ancestral home was in Bazaar-e-Hakiman in the Bhati Gate area of Lahore. His father, Mohammad Shah, was a lawyer who also held a masters’ degree in English Literature. Politically active, he was the editor of a fortnightly, an elected member of local bodies, honorary secretary of a cooperative bank and an initiator of the cooperative movement. Haider’s mother, Sikandra Begum, was brought up in the literary atmosphere of her parents’ home, where she was taught English by a British professor. Haider’s paternal grandfather was Syed Haider Shah, an officer in the British Army who owned agricultural land in two villages in the West Punjab. His maternal grandfather, Hakeem Amir-ud-Din, was the fifth Muslim barrister in India. He was called to the bar in 1886, and was one of the founders of Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam, the oldest teaching institution in Punjab. Haider and his two brothers, Abbas and Afzal, were brought up in an intellectually and culturally stimulating home, where both parents had their own libraries and the children were encouraged to debate after dinner. However, simple living remained the family’s hallmark. Haider started his primary schooling in 1932 in Pakpattan, a small town about 200 km south west of Lahore. His father had relocated there after attaining his law degree – as the eldest son he was responsible for looking after the family’s lands in the villages of Chak Haider Shah and Chak Amir Ali. Haider was educated at the local school, where, though there were few classrooms and hardly any furniture, there was no compromise on the imperatives, including high moral standards, discipline and calligraphy. He went on to the Government High School in Pakpattan, and completed his matriculation certificate in 1942, topping his class. He then moved to Lahore and joined Forman Christian College. These were formative years for Pakistan. As a young man, Haider felt inclined towards government service, but his father pointed out that the young country was going to need doctors, and so Haider opted for medicine. He joined King Edward Medical College, Lahore in 1945 and completed his MB BS in 1950. In 1947 India was partitioned and Pakistan and India subsequently became independent states. As a medical student, Haider was involved in helping refugees fleeing from India. After qualifying, he was appointed as a house surgeon at Mayo Hospital, Lahore, and opted to become a surgeon after being influenced by his teacher and mentor, Amir-ud-Din. In 1952, he moved to England for further studies, where he worked with several legendary surgeons, including Henry Hamilton Stewart, the urologist and pioneer of partial nephrectomy, Alphonsus d’Abreu, the pioneer of thoracic surgery, and Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors, who later became president of the Royal College of Surgeons. Haider gained his FRCS in 1957. He returned to Pakistan and was appointed as an assistant professor of surgery at the Nishtar Medical College, Multan. From 1962 to 1963 he served at Services Hospital, Lahore as a consultant surgeon, and from 1964 to 1965 as an assistant professor of surgery at Mayo Hospital. In 1966, he was posted to Nishtar Medical College, as professor of surgery, where he served until 1980. There he pioneered and established head and neck and oesophageal surgery and carried out the first partial nephrectomy. In 1980, he was appointed as professor of surgery at the King Edward Medical College, Lahore. At Mayo Hospital, he did the first parathyroidectomy in Punjab and made east surgical ward the centre for thyroid surgery, doing more than 2,000 thyroidectomies. He retired in 1988, however, he continued teaching at King Edward as well as at Shalamar Hospital Medical School, Lahore on an honorary basis. He also lectured at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Karachi. From 2001 to 2004 he served as principal of Islamabad Medical and Dental College. Haider was a handsome, always immaculately dressed traditionalist who was self-disciplined, straightforward and forthright with tremendous resilience; he expected the same from his students, younger colleagues and peers. He made concerted efforts to guide his students not only in medicine but in their language and communication skills, manners and dress code. A charismatic speaker, imparting knowledge was his passion. While teaching he spoke in a slow, deliberate manner, particularly while stressing an important point. He would spend his own resources and time preparing teaching materials, including slides and clinical photographs to elaborate his lectures. This was when such materials were difficult, expensive and time-consuming to prepare. He generously devoted his private time to his students, for whom the doors of his home were also open. Many of his trainees rose to eminence as teachers and surgeons in their own right. He was dedicated to his patients, and would ensure that no one was treated without proper supervision of seniors and that every patient got the best possible treatment given the resources. Kind hearted to all, he would help those in need in every possible manner. He even raised a fund in the ward to help poor and needy patients, of which he was the biggest donor. He married Tahira Bokhari in October 1958 in Lahore. She taught anatomy, initially at Nishtar Medical College, Multan and then at King Edward Medical College, Lahore. They had three children, two daughters and a son. All attended King Edward Medical College. Their eldest daughter, Zahra Haider, started in the department of anatomy at King Edward Medical College and is now a professor. The youngest daughter, Khadija, branched into psychotherapies, specialising in trauma therapy, and is based in Islamabad. Their son, Ali Haider, was professor of ophthalmology at Lahore General Hospital. On 18 February 2013, aged 50, he was murdered in an outbreak of sectarian violence along with his 11-year-old son, Murtaza Ali Haider. Deeply affected by this atrocity, Haider died on 3 August 2017 at the age of 89, grief stricken at having lived to see the loss of his only son and a grandson, killed in a nation to which he had dedicated his life. Syed Zafar Haider was a professional par excellence, a mentor with a great personal touch, a silent philanthropist, a Pakistani imbued with a love for his country and above all a doctor devoted to humanity with no worldly ambitions, a bearer of all the attributes which makes medicine the noblest profession.
Sources:
Fortnightly Pule International Professor Syed Zafar Haider 1927-2017 [https://www.pulsepakistan.com/index.php/main-news-nov-15-17/2336-professor-syed-zafar-haider](https://www.pulsepakistan.com/index.php/main-news-nov-15-17/2336-professor-syed-zafar-haider) – accessed 4 October 2018
Rights:
Copyright (c) The Royal College of Surgeons of England
Collection:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format:
Obituary
Format:
Asset
Asset Path:
Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
Media Type:
Unknown