​“We call him Sir in class and Salman on the court,” says Haider Saleem, MBBS ’19, about Dr Salman Kirmani, a beloved member of AKU faculty who is also one of Haider’s basketball buddies.

Besides teaching Haider and his classmates the ins and outs of paediatrics, Dr Salman has ‘schooled’ many players on the court on how to pull off the perfect lay-up as a member of the ‘Basketball Gang’ at AKU. The Basketball Gang is a Whatsapp group of students, staff, as well as faculty and their children, whos

e members joke and tease each other on the daily chat, and gather for a friendly, yet competitive, game at the University’s Sports and Rehabilitation Centre court every Sunday.

For the last two years, Haider has come to know Dr Salman as much more than a doctor and educator and he’s become someone Haider looks up to and seeks advice from.

Besides Dr Kirmani, there’s another member of the AKU family who has had a major impact on Haider, Dr Ayesha Mian, an associate professor in psychiatry at the University. Dr Ayesha has guided and encouraged Haider’s passion for psychiatry that saw him lead AKU’s student psychiatry society for three years, and present his research at his first-ever professional conference in the Czech Republic.

“Dr Ayesha has been so much more than a mentor to me. I was a lost first-year student until I met her,” Haider remembers. “She’s almost been like a ‘mother figure’ to me who has opened so many doors and inspired me to the best I can be.”

Of course, there’s another member of Haider’s AKU family who also inspires him to be the best he can be and that’s his fiancée Verda Arshad, MBBS ’19, who he met during his first year at AKU! The couple are all set to be married in January and they’re looking forward to another memorable celebration with friends and family after convocation.

Like Dr Ayesha Mian and Verda Arshad, Haider is set to become one of our 15,000 plus alumni at AKU Convocation 2019 and another member of the University’s growing family.