Pema Dorji (doctor)

On June 2, 1999, Drungtsho Pema Dorji was decorated with the Druk Thugsey Award by HM Jigme Singye Wangchuck the Fourth King of Bhutan for his service and bringing remarkable changes to the development of traditional medicine in Bhutan.

In 1968, Drungtsho Sherab Jorden and Drungtsho Pema Dorji established the first traditional clinic and dispensary to be set up under the government at Dechencholing, near Thimphu. In 1971 training of Menpas was started there in 1974 and in 1978 training of Drungtshos. In 1979, he established the new National Indigenous Medicine Hospital in Kawangjangsa, Thimphu which now forms part of the Institute of Traditional Medicine Services.

In 1946, Pema Dorji left Bhutan to train as a Drungtsho (physician-pharmacist) at the renowned Chagpori traditional medical college in Lhasa, Tibet. There he spent seven years studying with some of the greatest masters of the Sowa Rigpa (gso ba rig pa) medical tradition. Qualifying in 1953 he returned to Bhutan where he worked for nine years under his uncle, Neten Tsewang Gyeltshen in Trongsa Dzong.

Pema Dorji (Dzongkha: དྲུང་འཚོ་པདྨ་རྡོ་རྗེ; 1936-2009) was a Bhutanese doctor (drungtsho) of traditional Bhutanese and Tibetan medicine, was the first person to institutionalize traditional medicine in Bhutan. He was the founding director of the National Indigenous Medicine Hospital and of the Institute of Indigenous Medicine in the capital Thimphu, and the key person behind the establishment of the Health Department's indigenous clinics and dispensaries in all 20 districts of Bhutan which make available free treatment and medicine to all the citizens of Bhutan.