President KMCAANA, Dr. Arshad Rehan’s 2012 Message

Dear Friends,

I am writing to request you to join the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) and Khyber Medical College Alumni Association of North America (KMCAANA).

We are all very lucky and proud graduates of Khyber. It is no denying the fact that we got our medical education almost free of cost. I think it is incumbent upon us to give back something to our alma mater. Mashallah, we are all in a position that we can afford $175/year for membership in APPNA & KMCCANA. This is the least we could do to pay back.

Why APPNA & KMCAANA? We ask this question all the time. As regards KMCAANA, the answer is very simple. Well, we are all Khyber graduates and this is our platform to come together, stay in touch and try to give back to the college and people that gave us free education and laid the foundations on which we stand today. I am sorry to say but last year the membership of KMCAANA was only 94. This is only a fraction of Khyber graduates in North America. Strength of an organization primarily lies in numbers. Unless we grow our numbers, we will always be limited in what we can achieve. I am proud to say, however, that even with the handicap of being a smaller alumni in APPNA, we have been able to help our people back home in a number of ways recently. APPNA members have been very helpful in helping with KMCAANA projects and if we increase our numbers, we will be able to achieve much more.

I know that we all help in one way or another, but if we get organized as KMCAANA, under the umbrella of APPNA, we will be able to do a lot more as a strong group. We may differ with the internal politics of APPNA but that should not stop us from getting its help in giving back to Khyber and Pukhtunkhwa. Some of the things that KMCAANA has been able to do, over the last couple of years, with help from APPNA are as follows:

1. Raised over $200,000 for the internally displaced people (IDP) of Swat. Relief activities undertaken on the ground by students and doctors of Khyber with negligible overheads.

2. Donated two state of the art, fully equipped, ambulances to Rescue 1122 inPeshawar.

3. Donated one fully equipped ambulance to Saidu Hospital, Swat.

4. Raised over $100,000 for the flood affectees of 2010. Money spent on relief activities with negligible overheads.

5. Adopted reconstruction of a village destroyed by floods in Charsadda.

6. Scholarships awarded to 82 students whose homes and lives were affected by floods.

7. Reconstructed science lab at Federal Govt. School in Nowshera.

8. Established computer lab at Govt High School No. 1 in Nowshera.

10. Presently, KMCAANA is bearing the expenses of 25 most deserving students at Khyber; Committed to provide tuition expenses along with monthly scholarships from 1st year till they graduate.

11. Established a BLS (basic life support) lab at Khyber.

12. Requested Pakistani cardiologists of North America for establishment of a pacemaker bank at Peshawar for free pacemakers for poor patients. This was inaugurated this last December.

These are a few of the projects that we have been able to complete with a membership of only 94 members in KMCAANA. Many of you contributed to these as well and we thank you. If our numbers in APPNA increase, we will have more leverage there and thus the capacity to do much more for our people. I ask you to visit the web sites of other alumni such as KE and Dow and see what they have been doing for their institutions. We need to prove that we are not ungrateful people and can do better. Be active in KMCAANA and identify ways that we can help our college with. Once again, the least we can do is become members of APPNA and KMCAANA. We can all afford $175 a year, can’t we? Please visit http://www.appna.org/index.php?option=com_user&view=register&layout=showinfo and become members. Please email me back when you have registered for our records. (Please forward this message to any friends from Khyber working here that you know of as well.)

Also please mark your calendars for the APPNA annual summer meeting in Washington DC, this coming fourth of July weekend. I am sure that you will meet lots of old friends and enjoy the meeting. It is always fun and most people that attend make it an annual feature

Regards,

Arshad.