LONDON – British-Pakistani consultant urologist Dr Muhammad Shabi Ahmed has been awarded the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz for nearly three decades of public service in Pakistan and the United Kingdom.
President Asif Ali Zardari conferred the civil award on Dr Ahmed, whose name appears among the recipients listed in the official record issued by the Presidency.
Dr Ahmed is a consultant urologist and professor of urology in Birmingham. He also serves as a visiting and honorary professor at Dow University of Health Sciences and the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT).
He has held several senior professional positions, including trustee and vice president and treasurer of the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS). He became the first graduate from Pakistan to serve on the association’s council in its 80-year history. He is also a founding member of the Association of Pakistani Physicians in the UK.
A graduate of Dow Medical College, Dr Ahmed completed his higher surgical training in urology in Newcastle, focusing on endourology and kidney stone disease. He later received advanced training and completed fellowships in the UK and at specialist centres in Southeast Asia.
Dr Ahmed was part of a small group of specialists credited with pioneering a minimally invasive kidney stone removal procedure in the UK.
The procedure allows surgeons to remove a kidney stone measuring about two centimetres through an incision of approximately one centimetre. Patients can usually be discharged within 24 hours, compared with hospital stays of up to five days under older surgical methods.
Explaining the technique, Dr Ahmed said a thin telescopic instrument, known as a nephroscope, was inserted into the kidney through a small incision in the patient’s side.
“The stone is either pulled out or broken into smaller pieces using laser or pneumatic energy,” he said.
Dr Ahmed has also been involved in charitable healthcare projects in Pakistan and other developing countries. He serves as a trustee and UK representative of SIUT and represents the Indus Health Network in the UK.
He is also associated with Midland Health, a UK-based organisation that established a charitable hospital in Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir. In 2018, he helped establish urology services at the hospital and has continued to support the programme.
He has organised and participated in charitable urology camps in southern Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and rural Sindh.
His work in Pakistan also includes medical education and postgraduate training. He serves as an examiner for the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan and the Master of Surgery programme in urology. He also advises medical training programmes in Pakistan and abroad.
Thanking the government for the honour, Dr Ahmed said the award held particular significance because it had been bestowed by the country of his birth.
“This award recognises my work with national and international charitable organisations, supporting healthcare delivery and fundraising for disadvantaged communities in the developing world, and my role in helping the health sectors in both the UK and Pakistan,” he said.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr Ahmed appeared on British television to raise concerns about inadequate personal protective equipment and its disproportionate impact on doctors from ethnic minority backgrounds.
He has also raised concerns about what he describes as the unequal treatment of ethnic minority doctors by the UK’s General Medical Council and has advocated for medical professionals experiencing distress.
