Prof. Dr. Zahida Baqai, co-founder of Karachi’s Baqai Medical University, passed away late last December after a lifetime devoted to medicine and education.
Dr. Zahida Baqai comes from a lineage that has for decades honored the plight of charitable work as well as public service. Her father, Salimullah Fahmi, migrated to Calcutta from Rudawli in Barabanki during the upheavals following the 1857 freedom movement against the British Raj, and later relocated to Dhaka after the Partition of 1947. A Bengal Civil Service officer, he held significant administrative roles in former East Pakistan and within the federal government. The Fahmi Health Education Centre, which bears his name, stands as a testament to a family legacy where intellect, public responsibility, and cultural depth were inseparable. Her authority within medicine was equally earned.
Dr. Zahida Baqai completed her MBBS at Dhaka Medical College and her house job at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in Karachi, before proceeding to England to obtain her MRCOG. Upon returning to Pakistan, she continued to expand her clinical and institutional work, serving for a period as a gynecologist with the Pakistan Navy. In recognition of her contributions to the medical field, she was later elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG). She stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband, Dr. Fareed Uddin Baqai, and oversaw the creation of the Baqai Hospital as well as Fatima Hospital, a 250-bed charitable establishment.
One of the most concrete expressions of Dr. Zahida Baqai’s vision was her groundbreaking work in reproductive medicine. In 1995, she founded an Institute of Assisted Reproductive Techniques at a time when such work was still nascent in Pakistan. In the years that followed, the program expanded to encompass the full spectrum of advanced reproductive technologies, achieving outcomes comparable to international standards.
The institution functioned as both a training ground and a safe haven. She was home to many of my professors and mentors. Many of whom vowed to guard the world she carefully upheld.
As a pioneer of in-vitro fertilization in Pakistan, Dr. Zahida Baqai demonstrated how academic brilliance must be matched with administrative precision. A product of this very idea is the Baqai Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Sciences.
What Dr. Zahida Baqai built and managed was revolutionary. Institutions outlive individuals only when they are built with intention. In that sense, her legacy is not confined to buildings or titles; it lives in culture, in continuity, and in the generations who carry forward the seriousness she instilled.
Dr. Zahida Baqai was laid to rest alongside her husband in Baqai Medical University, where every day, those she taught, those who lived in her orbit, hundreds of them continue to pay their respects and carry forward the legacy.
Leave a Reply