Rural Community as Context and Teacher for Health Professions Education

Nepal is a low-income, landlocked country located on the Indian subcontinent between China and India. The challenge of finding human resources for rural community health care settings is not unique to Nepal. In spite of the challenges, the health sector has made significant improvement in national health indices over the past half century. However, in terms of access to and quality of health services and impact, there remains a gross urban-rural disparity. The Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) has adopted a community-based education model, termed “community based learning and education" (CBLE), as one of the principal strategies and pedagogic methods. This method is linked to the PAHS mission of improving rural health in Nepal by training medical students through real-life experience in rural areas and developing a positive attitude among its graduates towards working in rural areas. This article outlines the PAHS approach of ruralizing the academy, which aligns with the concept of community engagement in health professional education. We describe how PAHS has embedded medical education in rural community settings, encouraging the learning context to be rural, fostering opportunities for community and peripheral health workers to participate in teaching-learning as well as evaluation of medical students, and involving community people in curriculum design and implementation.