National Professor and eminent child specialist Dr MR Khan breathed his last at Central Hospital in the capital yesterday. He was 88.
He breathed his last around 4:25pm while undergoing treatment at the Central Hospital. Director of the hospital Dr MA Quasem confirmed the news. “He was suffering from old age complications. Recently he was operated three-time both in home and abroad,” he said.
Mohammad Rafi Khan, popularly known as MR Khan, was born on August 1 in 1928 under Satkhira district. Prof Khan passed MBBS from Calcutta Medical College in 1952. He subsequently completed DCH, MRCP, FCPS, FRCP specialist degrees respectively from UK (1957), Scotland (1962), Bangladesh (1974) and UK (1978). Prof Khan has served as physician and teacher in the field of child health for half a century in Bangladesh. He was known as ‘Father of Pediatricians and Institution’ in Bangladesh. Contacted, Dr Ekhlasur Rahman, director of Mirpur Institute of Child Health (ICH) —one of institutes established by MR Khan, said, “MR Khan was the first paediatric professor in Bangladesh. There is no paediatrician in Bangladesh who was not a direct or indirect student of him.” Other than the Mirpur ICH, he was the founder of the Child Health Foundation Bangladesh and Children’s Hospitals at Satkhira and Jessore.
He also made strenuous efforts in establishing Women’s Medical College, Uttara, Central Hospital, Dhanmondi and Nivedita Hospital.
He was awarded ‘Ekushey Padak’ for his contributions in child health and medicine on Mar 24 this year. He also received Bangladesh’s highest civilian honour, the Swadhinata Padak or Independence Award.