Founding President, First Response Initiative of Pakistan

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Dr. Akbar Herekar is the founding president of First Response Initiative of Pakistan. He completed his basic medical education from Dow Medical College Karachi in 2012 and did his house-job training at Civil Hospital Karachi, a tertiary care public teaching hospital that deals with a variety of trauma cases on a daily basis. He is also certified by the Election Commission of Foreign Medical Graduates to practice in the United States.

 

With a passion for neurosurgery compounded by an understanding of trauma care at a young age, Dr. Akbar Herekar has always had a progressive approach to the problems faced by Karachi's over-burdened society with a constant drive to make a change. Over the years, he has transformed First Response Initiative of Pakistan from a small group of medical students into a registered non-governmental organisation, complete with departments, equipment and an office and has mobilised scores of medical students and young doctors to this cause.  He has worked closely in disaster related projects in the past including during the earthquake in 2008, as well as held rural health camps in interior Sindh quite often. 

 

A believer in leading by example, Akbar has responded to bomb-blasts as well as plane crashes in an effort to save lives and support response teams, incidents that played  a large role in the conception of FRIP. He is certified in Advanced Trauma Life Support by the American College of Surgeons; Basic Life Support and Advnaced Cardiac Life Support by the American Heart Association and is an instructor for Primary Trauma Care Foundation as well. He hopes to continue in his effort to provide high quality life-saving information as well as forming a highly trained Mass Disaster Task Force under the FRIP banner. Akbar's future plans along with a career in Neuro/Trauma surgery include setting up a workable tele-health system in the rural areas of Pakistan as well as setting up a definitive Level 1 trauma centre in the city of Karachi.

 

Dr. Akbar also serves as Managing Trustee of the Headache Research Foundation of Pakistan and has published and presented many research papers including a nationwide study of headaches in collaboration with Lifting the Burden Worldwide. He has served on a number of positions in differential non-governmental organisations working towards the betterment of the Pakistani community in the past including Director of Patients Welfare Association, Senior Council Member of the International Federation of Medical Students' Association Karachi amongst others.