Dr Munshi: The Good Doctor
The stature of the ‘vuniwai’ or doctor in Fiji comes with special responsibilities. You tend to automatically become a role model and the expectations from the public become immense.
Dr Basharat Munshi is the president of the Fiji Medical Association.
He is a young man who knows the responsibility that comes with the profession especially during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also knows the respect doctors are given in Fiji.
Growing up
To those who do not know Dr Munshi, he is a Suva boy who grew up at Fletcher Road in Vatuwaqa.
He grew up in an era where technology had not spoiled what many Fijians like to call the good childhood, where children would play outside rather than being chased outside to play.
“Growing up through the 80’s and 90’s was certainly one of the best memories I have as a child,” Dr Munshi said.
“Back in those days, we had no fence around our home. We knew all our neighbours and spent endless hours playing with our neighbourhood friends from the time we woke up until the sun went down and sometimes beyond.
“We had approximately eight mango trees around the perimeter of our compound.”
He said during the mango season they spent more time hanging out on the trees than on the ground.
Dr Munshi said his father was an avid gardener and they shared whatever they grew in their backyard garden with their neighbours and family members.
Growing up in a middle-income family was a blessing for Dr Munshi and his sister, as it taught them from a very young age to earn the right to get toys and other luxuries like bicycles and skateboards.
“Whatever little we had, we shared with our childhood friends and our cousins who visited us often. The sense of community and the bonds we had with our neighbours were really strong and exists to this day,” he said.
School
Dr Munshi says schooling days were the best years of his life.
He attended Ahmadiyya Muslim Primary School in Nasinu, where he started class one in 1985- the year in which the school was started. He and his sister were pioneer students of the school.
“I am indebted to the head teacher
of the school Mohammed Hussain, an uncle of mine for taking my sister and I to school everyday and bringing us back home safely in his car for eight years.”
Dr Munshi completed his secondary school at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) High School from 1993-1997.
“When you are a child, you are not jaded and you do not have any significant responsibilities apart from getting good grades in school,” he said.
“I was a ‘happy – go – lucky’ child who was full of energy and mischief. I loved sports and every opportunity that I had during recess, lunch and after school, my mates and I would be out in the field playing.
“I vividly remember playing touch rugby with a stick, plastic bottle and a taped up crumpled paper as we did not have a proper rugby ball. I played a variety of sports in school including soccer, rugby, cricket, volleyball, table tennis as well as lawn tennis.”
During his last year in secondary school, Dr Munshi formed a sevens rugby team that played various inter-secondary school tournaments.
A scholarship and hard work
Munshi’s tertiary education was dictated by the scholarship he had secured.
It was an era when scholarships were hard to come by and there were no student loan schemes.
He says he was blessed to have been able to have the grades to secure a scholarship to do MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) at the Fiji School of Medicine from 1997-2003.
“Tertiary education was a culture shock for me initially as I was used to teachers pushing me in primary and high school whereas in FSM, it was self-motivated learning.
“With time, I got used to the idea of self-directed learning and taking ownership of your own education and time-management was very important in this.”
Dr Munshi said a bachelor’s degree is sheer hard work and not just handed to you.
He said he and his fellow colleagues had to work very hard to get theirs. This meant coming out of their comfort zones.
After finishing his undergraduate studies, Dr Munshi pursued postgraduate studies and successfully completed a Master of Medicine in Surgery which enabled him to become a surgeon.
“This was done in a period of my life where I had married and had children so achieving this goal came at the sacrifice of quality time with my family.
“It is important to have a supportive spouse and I am forever indebted to my wife Priscilla Munshi for holding the family together which enabled me to fulfil my dreams.”
Early years in medicine
In 2004, Dr Munshi finished his internship at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital.
He was then posted to Cicia, Lau. This was his first posting.
He remained there as a medical officer for two years.
He returned to CWM Hospital as a junior surgical registrar.
He went for further surgical training to Palmerston North Hospital in New Zealand from 2011 to 2012 after which he returned for a short stint in 2013 at the CWM Hospital.
Following that, he trained in Trauma Surgery at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne in 2013.
In 2014, he did a Trauma Fellowship at the Westmead Hospital in Sydney and in 2015, he worked at University Hospital Geelong in Victoria prior to returning to Fiji.
Following that he was with the Fiji National University as an Assistant Professor in General Surgery from 2016 to 2019 prior to joining Pacific Specialist Healthcare in the role of Clinical Director and General Surgeon.
COVID-19 and its challenges
Dr Munshi is of the firm belief that the only way out of the pandemic is through vaccination.
He said the pandemic is one of the greatest challenges that humanity has faced.
He says the pandemic has made people realise what is important.
“From a health perspective, it requires an unprecedented level of cooperation between Health Professionals, laboratory scientists, pharmaceutical companies, governments around the world as well as various NGO’s to come up with and implement strategies that will eventually enable us to curb this pandemic and save more lives from being lost.”
He said this situation taught the world the importance of public health messaging and education to enable everyone to take ownership of their own health and make the right health choices.
Role models
Dr Munshi’s father, the late Tahir Hussain Munshi, a teacher who became a career education administrator with the Ministry of Education was his role model.
“My late mother, Shamima Munshi, had the tougher Job of bringing up my sister and I. I have one older sibling, Farzana Adams. My late parents were really good human beings; kind, compassionate, generous and self-less.
“I admire and am motivated by individuals who are honest, humble, kind and go out of their way to make life better for their fellow human beings,” he said.
“This could be someone who has very little, but is willing to share whatever little they have with a stranger as typified by our true Bula spirit of “mai kana” that is inbuilt in most people who grew up in Fiji.”
Dr Munshi believes that Fijians have the potential to create utopia right here.