Pakistan, April 30 -- With her four-year-old nestled nearby, doctor Saniya Jafri consults from home in Karachi with a patient on the other side of Pakistan via her laptop.

She is one of thousands of Pakistani female doctors returning to practice through "telemedicine" after leaving the profession because of family obligations and workplace barriers to women in the conservative society. Although women outnumber men in Pakistan's medical registrations, many stop practicing after marriage, exacerbating the fast-growing nation's shortage of doctors. Jafri, a mother of three, gave up cardiology after marriage. "I did not want to choose long working hours and be away from home for a long time," she told AFP.

But an initiative by digital healt...