National Academy of Medical Sciences
Bir Hospital
Kathmandu, Nepal
Bir Hospital
Bir Hospital– Service: Bir Hospital, the nation’s oldest medical institute established in the year 1889 AD, has been developed into the National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS). It has been contributing much towards the delivery of health care in the country. Every year the Bir Hospital admits 8,354 inpatient, deals with 3,10,942 outpatient attendance and treats over 60,000 accidents and emergency cases. It has currently 400 beds. The new Trauma and Emergency Block, which will be completely developed within a few months, will add further 200 beds. Beside the general medical service, Bir Hospital provides services in highly specialised areas like Neurology, Neuro-Surgery, Cardiology, Cardio-thorasic and Vascular Surgery, Burn and Plastic Surgery, Nephrology, Urology, G.I. surgery, Gastroenterology, Hepatology (separate unit) and Radiotherapy. The Bir Hospital, thus, provides services to the community in most medical and surgical specialty and super-specialties through emergency, outpatient and impatient facilities. Majority of outdoor examination service and indoor beds in Bir Hospital are free. This is the only tertiary referral center in the country which provides such free service.
Bir Hospital – Academic: The hospital plays an important role in training the medical and nursing professionals in the country. In a way, Bir Hospital is the first teaching hospital for, with the Civil Medical School initially located here, the teaching of compounders and dressers and later nurses used to take place at this institution. Nursing education started since 1954 AD and later nursing campus was established. The Bir Hospital is the training ground for the doctors of the Health Ministry. Bir Hospital has been the center for the training of FRCS, MRCP, MRCOG, and FCPS (Pakistan) candidates too. About two decades before, MBBS programme of Institute of Medicine, TU Teaching Hospital first started here with its building, patients and manpower. Later it got shifted to Institute of Medicine along with many of the doctors working in Bir Hospital. MBBS students from Nepal Medical College are posted here for clinical training. Pre-intern, Intern and elective students from within and outside the country also come here for training. About two decades ago, Post- Graduate Medical Education Coordination Committee (PGMECC) started postgraduate clinical MD/MS programme in many subjects with cooperation between Bir Hospital and Institute of Medicine and other hospitals like Maternity Hospital and Kanti Children Hospital. Now Bir Hospital has been formally developed into the National Academy of Medical Sciences as a deemed university.
Aims
Aims of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, Bir Hospital are as following:
- To make available quality medical service in the whole country
- To produce highly trained manpower in the medical field in the country, and
- To develop the academy as the national source center to conduct research studies in the field of medical sciences.
Hospitals
With National Academy of Medical Sciences, Bir Hospital, currently eleven other hospitals in the country are affiliated for academic training. Most of such hospitals are also government public referral institutes.Hospita
Affiliated Hospital
National Academy of Medical Sciences
Embodied Hospital-Bir Hospital, Mahaboudha
- New Eye Hospital Tripureshwor
- Patan Hospital, Lagankhel
- National Public Health Labrotary, Teku
- Kanti Children's Hospita, Maharajgunj
- BP Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital, Bharatpur
- Mental Hospital, Lagankhel
- Shahid Gangalal National Heart Center, Bansbari
- Tilganga Eye Centre, Gaushala
- Shree Rana Ambika Shah Eye Hospital, Bhairawa
- Shree Birendra Hospital, Chaunni
- Paropakar Matrenity & Women's Hospita, Thapathali
This is indeed a unique feature of NAMS in the region. Postgraduate programmes like MD/MS are run incorporating many public hospitals, in contrast to other medical universities which provide such training in their single hospital complex. In this way the integration of regular health service and academy is effectively done updating the professionals in many public institutes, whereas in most other situations in developing countries, public hospital manpower is not involved in academic activities. Thus NAMS is effectively acting as the center channeling the resources, knowledge, information, trainings, academic & research activities in different affiliated public institutes.
Programmes
Basic specialist training programme: MD/MS is a three year clinical training programme like MRCP (UK). It has also the component of thesis work. It is a structured training programme with mandatory basic skill courses like research methodology, medical education, basic surgical skill, trauma course etc. The MD/MS clinical training programme has been running in the following twelve subjects of medicine like Anesthesiology, Dermatology, General Practice, General Surgery, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Paediatric, Pathology, Radiology and Radiotherapy.
Higher specialist training programme: Those with MD/MS training qualification are eligible for higher specialist training programme in NAMS. Fellowship programme of 4 years duration is running in Neurosurgery. Higher specialist training programme is being planned in nephrology, gastroenterology medicine, cardiology, diabetes and endocrinology, hematology, tuberculosis and respiratory medicine, burns and plastic, urology surgery, CTVS and gastroenterology surgery.
Nursing campus: Three years Certificate Nursing and two years Post basic Bachelor Nursing programmes are currently running in the institute. Master nursing programme is also planned.
Possible areas of collaboration
- Exchange of manpower for training: Exchange of manpower in various required areas may mutually benefit. For NAMS, training exposure in its various programmes, currently running or planned, like neurosurgery, nephrology, gastroenterology, diabetes and endocrinology, cardiology are particularly relevant. For Australian medical and nursing professionals, exposure in many clinical situations of a developing country could be useful.
- Joint research programme: Joint research programmes could be effectively arranged utilizing the materials available here and the expertise and facilities available in developed Australian set ups.
- Medical Education Unit: The role of Medical Education Unit is increasingly being realized for updating the professionals in different specialties of medical sciences. For NAMS, training of its manpower in Masters in Medical Education Programme is important, but such training programme is not available locally and is expensive in developed countries. Similarly, for Australian counterparts understanding the training approaches here may be useful.
- Higher specialist training programme: In Nepal, there is acute crisis of higher specialist professionals in different fields. The NAMS is trying to produce the manpower in various fields. Visit of expert professionals to guide the training programme would be quite useful. Similar trainees from Australia may also benefit.