Sunday Times 2
Retirement of Senior Professor Rezvi Sheriff
View(s):Senior Professor Mohamed Hussain Rezvi Sheriff retires on September 30 after 41 years of service to the University of Colombo. His contributions to universities, the discipline of medicine and the health sector of Sri Lanka are too many to enumerate.
On Thursday, as is traditional, the ‘Grand Round’ was held by Prof. Sheriff in Ward 41 of the National Hospital and his photograph was unveiled at the Consultants’ Lounge.
Senior Professor Mohamed Hussain Rezvi Sheriff’s photograph unveiled. Pic by Indika Handuwala
The felicitation ceremony including the release of a Felicitation Volume naming of an auditorium in his name, and an academic session consisting of lectures delivered in his honour, followed on Friday at the ClinMARC building opposite Ward 59.
Prof. Sheriff has one of the longest academic careers in the university system, beginning his career as a Lecturer in 1973. He passed the MD (Ceylon) in 1974. He was an honorary Consultant Physician to the National Hospital of Sri Lanka from 1973 (one of the longest periods of service) and subsequently the lead clinician of the University Medical Unit. He obtained his postgraduate training in the UK and returned to Sri Lanka with MRCP (UK). He was appointed as Professor of Medicine in 1990 and Senior Professor in Medicine from 1998. He is one of the most experienced clinicians in the country and his clinical acumen and skills are well known. He continues to be a sought after clinician in both the government and private hospitals. Thousands of patients would have gone through his care.
Several generations of undergraduates and postgraduates have had the benefit of being taught, trained and assessed by him. He has supervised many M.Phils and Ph.Ds and is also an External Examiner for MRCP in the UK and postgraduate examinations in Pakistan. He was a main anchor in the developments in medical education and curriculum change of our Faculty. His contributions to the PGIM during his tenure as Director PGIM (from 2007 to 2013) include the establishment of several new courses.
He was a pioneer in the field of nephrology in Sri Lanka and led the first renal transplant in 1985. Since then the Faculty of Medicine Kidney Transplant programme has carried out more than 1,000 transplants. He was the prime mover in establishment of the MD in Nephrology and the National Institute of Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation. Most, if not all the current nephrologists in Sri Lanka have trained under him.
The President of Sri Lanka conferred him the title of Vidyajyothi in 1993 in recognition of the contributions he has made to the health and education sectors in Sri Lanka.
His research interests were very wide ranging from non-communicable disease, snake bite, toxicology, nephrology, chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology (CKDu), medical education and SLE. His publications in peer reviewed journals are over 200. In 2011, he was the top scientist from Sri Lanka in the Web of Science database (a citation-based database).