Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Nepal

Spread over two campuses in Pokhra and offering a unique panorama of the Annapurna range of the mighty Himalayas, MCOMS is one of Asia’s most respected medical schools

Perhaps inevitably, India’s most well-equipped and undoubtedly most scenically situated medical college — the Manipal College of Medical Sciences (MCOMS) — is sited beyond national borders. Started in 1994 with a first batch of 100 MBBS students, it inaugurated its 825-bed Manipal Teaching Hospital in the Himalayan foothills town of Pokhra (pop.293,000) in 1998. Today MCOMS is Nepal’s largest and one of Asia’s most respected medical schools offering the under-graduate MBBS and 18 postgrad nursing and allied health study progra-mmes to 931 students from 15 countries around the world.

Promoted following a historic agreement between the then His Majesty’s government of Nepal and the Manipal and Bangalore-based Manipal Education Group (MEG, estb. 1953) — India’s premier professional education (medical, engineering, nursing and allied health services) transnational with 120,000 students in 55 institutions including medical colleges in Sikkim, Malaysia and Antigua (West Indies) — MCOMS is affiliated with Kathmandu University, Nepal’s first not-for-profit private technical university. “Before MCOMS was inaugurated in Pokhra, all of Nepal’s education institutions were concentrated around Kathmandu. The government of Nepal asked us to site MCOMS in the western region as part of its education expansion and access plan, as the country had only one medical college at that time,” says Brig. (Retd.) Dr. O.P. Talwar, director of academics, examinations, and  postgrad studies in MCOMS.

Spread over two campuses at Deep (eight acres, where students spend their first two years) and Phulbari (30 acres which hosts the teaching hospital), MCOMS offers rooms affording a unique panorama of the Annapurna range of the mighty Himalayas, and spectacular vistas of the Dhaulagiri, Himachali, and Macchapuchre peaks. Equipped with a 825-bed super specialty training hospital housed in a seven-storey building with a built-up area of 500,000 sq. ft and state-of-the-art facilities, the college, which has an aggregate enrolment of 931 students instructed by 131 permanent faculty, has acquired an excellent academic reput-ation. Its MBBS programme is approved by the Medical Council of India and its counterparts in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Moreover MCOMS graduates are eligible to write USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination), PLAB (Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board) and AMC (Australian Medical Council) exams. Postgrad programmes are offered in pathology, and MD/MS programmes in almost all clinical and basic sciences disciplines.

Under the MoU between the Nepal government and MEG, 20 percent of the annual intake of 150 students is reserved for full scholarship Nepalese students nominated by the education ministry of Nepal, and another 15 percent is reserved for fee-paying Nepalese nationals. Consequently 65 percent of seats are open to foreign nationals mainly from India and other South Asian countries. The annual tuition fee for Indian students enroled in the MBBS study programme spread over four-and-half years is Rs.5.5 lakh.

To maintain high academic and admin standards MEG has drawn heavily from the large and growing pool of retired personnel from the highly respected medical corps of the Indian Army. “This is a gurukul for us where faculty members are also mentors. Every student has a mentor, who helps him/her cope with academic and non-academic issues,” says Lt. Col (Retd.) Dr. Shishir Gokhale, director of basic sciences and the department of microbiology.

MCOMS’ student community comprising several nationalities from America, Africa, SAARC region, Middle East and ASEAN countries (40 percent of them women students), is housed on the 30-acre Phulbari campus in a six floor residential building which offers high-quality twin occupancy rooms with attached bathrooms. Bordered on one side by the River Seti, a backdrop of forested hills and snow-covered mountains, the Phulbari campus provides a unique environment for learning. Playing fields are available for cricket, football, basketball and volleyball and indoor games facilities include badminton, table tennis, chess and carom. Moreover beyond campus limits, Nepal and Pokhra in particular, offer exciting opportunities for mountaineering, trekking and river rafting. “To date more than 177 foreign interns have served clinical postings here mainly to study tropical medicine, community health and other health subjects associated with underdeve-loped societies,” says Brig. (Dr.) Prasanta Kumar Chakraborty, director of the Manipal Teaching Hospital.

The college’s academic infrastructure includes several well-equipped lecture halls, laboratories and a library with a collection of 10,000 volumes and over 1,500 journal subscriptions, 1,000 WHO publications, photocopying machines, computer centres spread over 4,000 sq. ft premises which can accommodate 350 students.

Now almost two decades after  inauguration with its consolidation phase completed and reputation well-established, the MCOMS management has drawn up cautious expansion plans. “With our undergraduate MBBS study programme having established a global reputation and attracting a steady flow of 150 students per year from over 15 countries, we plan to expand our postgrad and super specialties programmes from the current 15 to 25 over in the next two years. Simultaneously we wish to increase our B.Sc nursing and M.Sc student intake while upgrading the infrastructure facilities of our teaching hospital,” says Dr. B.M. Nagpal former head of the department of surgery at the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and dean of MCOMS since 2007.

This pioneer medical college established in an environment of great natural beauty seems all set to become a joy forever.

Autar Nehru (Pokhra)