Embedding social accountability in the medical school and its curricula: Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Nepal

Abstract

Introduction: Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) was established in 2008 with a social accountability mandate and the mission to produce competent and committed health professionals to serve the rural and underserved population. Enrolment of undergraduate medical students started from 2010. This article describes the context and process for the establishment of the Academy, the approaches taken and some of the early outputs.
 Method: The information was collected from the policy documents, PAHS website, meeting minutes/ discussions, feedbacks and medial school records. All the information were compiled and presented under different headings/subheadings in a phase wise manner.
 Result: PAHS has been actively engaged in a multitude of partnerships from local to global and has chosen the best and most applicable innovations from around the world. The integrated suite of innovations the Academy has developed includes its admission policy, teaching-learning methodologies, community-based learning, scholarship-schemes and service bonds. The PAHS School of Medicine has successfully enrolled undergraduate medical students from all over the country, representing ethnic diversity, remote/rural background, underprivileged communities and gender balance. More than 50% graduates from the first five-batches are successfully deployed into primary level peripheral health facilities of the government health system.
 Conclusion: The initial reports and observations confirm that the integrated measures taken by the Academy have been effective in enrolling the right students, educating them in an effective way and deploying them to address the country's need. A longer follow-up on rural retention and performance evaluation is needed to conclusively establish the outcome of the school.

Reflection on Five Months Rural District Hospital Posting of Final Year MBBS Students

“…Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) is a medical school from Lalitpur, Nepal established in 2008 with a mission to serve the health needs of rural communities of Nepal. 5 To meet this mission and fulfill its social accountability, it has been preparing medical students, and future doctors, to work in rural communities of Nepal aligning with the national health system. 5 PAHS has adopted community-based Based Learning and Education (CBLE) as an innovative teaching-learning system where students are sent to different rural community postings during their undergraduate course, MBBS, to learn about the health system of Nepal and adapt to work in rural Nepal.…”

“… 5 To meet this mission and fulfill its social accountability, it has been preparing medical students, and future doctors, to work in rural communities of Nepal aligning with the national health system. 5 PAHS has adopted community-based Based Learning and Education (CBLE) as an innovative teaching-learning system where students are sent to different rural community postings during their undergraduate course, MBBS, to learn about the health system of Nepal and adapt to work in rural Nepal. 5 In these postings students are exposed to different levels of the national health system of Nepal ranging from female community health volunteer (FCHV) level to district level.…”

“…There is a 6-month long district level posting in the final year of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) curriculum which is the longest among all these rural postings at PAHS. 5 This posting is further broken down into 5 months district hospital posting and 1-month of district health office posting. Due to academic delays of COVID-19 pandemic, this posting was cut short to 20 weeks (17 weeks at district hospital and 3 weeks at the district health office).…”

Social Accountability: From Hospital to Society

“…The Network: Towards Unity for Health (TUFH) has been trailblazing the social accountability movement and bringing together social accountable schools and other stakeholders through its collaborative partnership and network. The self-assessment tools developed by TUFH and Training for Health Equity Network (THEnet) help institutions to guide through social accountability mandates [11,12].…”