Patan Academy of Health Sciences

The PAHS Mission Statement: 
“PAHS is dedicated to sustained improvement of the health of the people in Nepal, especially those who are poor and living in rural areas, through innovation, equity, excellence and love in education, service and research.”

In rural Nepal, there is less than one doctor for every 150,000 people, yet most medical school graduates in Nepal are unwilling and unprepared to live and work in these rural areas.  Those that do accept positions at rural health care facilities often leave these jobs prematurely.  Although there are numerous medical schools in Kathmandu, none had taken up the challenge of encouraging students to improve the plight of the rural population.  In addition, of the more than 1000 doctors produced in Nepal each year, over 40% leave the country soon after graduation in search of greener pastures abroad.  The Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS), a public nonprofit tertiary academic institution based at Patan Hospital in Kathmandu, was founded in 2010 to address these problems head-on. 

The founders of PAHS envisioned a medical school that would intentionally produce doctors ready and willing to tackle the appalling state of medical care in rural Nepal.  First, PAHS preferentially admits students from rural areas and those deemed most likely to live and serve in rural areas.  From the beginning, special scholarships were provided especially for these students, most of whom come from backgrounds of extreme poverty.  In addition, PAHS developed an innovative and groundbreaking curriculum intentionally designed to prepare its graduates to work in the more remote areas of Nepal.  From their very first year of study, PAHS students are assigned to rural villages for a few months at at time where they learn to work with limited resources and gain understanding and compassion for the special health needs of the rural poor.  These postings help to prepare students to serve where they are needed most. 

PAHS graduated its first class of medical students in 2015, with 100% of these graduates passing their medical licensing exam on the first attempt.  They added a School of Nursing and Midwifery in 2016 and a School of Public Health in 2017 and expect to be opening a School of Allied Health Science soon.  The government of Nepal recently pledged to fund full tuition for every medical student at PAHS, allowing deserving students from rural, underprivileged backgrounds to obtain medical training for the benefit of their home districts.

The goal of PAHS is that its graduates will not only provide severely needed medical care in rural Nepal but will also eventually become leaders in health care policy, dedicated to improving the overall health of the remote and destitute populations in Nepal.  Furthermore, PAHS serves as a model of innovative medical education in a developing country which can be replicated elsewhere.  FOPH salutes the Nepali and expatriate educators and all the members of the International Advisory Board of PAHS who have volunteered their time and talent to ensure that this remarkable educational enterprise is a success.  We are especially proud to announce that the recently-appointed vice chancellor of PAHS (as of 2021) is a long-time FOPH board member and friend and founder of Hospice Nepal, Dr. Rajesh Gongal.

You can learn more about the Patan Academy of Health Sciences at www.pahs.edu.np.