Fatima Jinnah Dental College - History

History

FJDC was established against the backdrop of a disastrous dental scenario in 1992, during which the dentist-to-population ratio of 1 dentist to nearly 85,000 people was one of the lowest in the world. In 1993, there were just over 1,200 registered dentists in Pakistan compared to 70,000 medical doctors, serving a population of well over 100 million.

Therefore, in 1989, Bakar Askary, then the President of the Dow Medical College Students' Union and President National Students Federation, launched a campaign for the establishment of a dental college to serve the over 12 million people of Karachi. The aim initially was to persuade the Federal Government and the Provincial Government of Sindh to establish a dental college attached to one of the existing medical colleges in the city, specifically either the Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre, Sindh Medical College, Dow Medical College, or Civil Hospital as dental departments already existed in these institutions.

However, by mid 1989 it was made clear that the government had no intention of establishing a dental college at Karachi, but the Federal Government of Pakistan, did however, as a consolation, announced later that year, that it will allow such an institution to be established in the private sector.

Thereafter, with the intimation to the Federal Government, Provincial Ministries for Health, The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and the University of Karachi, and with all other necessary documentation, the college finally begun its first academic session in the year 1992-93. The college officials consider it significant that year 1993 was also the centenary year of the birth of Fatima Jinnah, in whose memory the college was established, and therefore consider the college as a "gift to the Nation" on that occasion.

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