History

Nepal is the only country boasting several of the highest peaks in the world. A significant number of tourists along with Nepali porters and the expedition crew visit the high Himalayas annually, leaving alone the summiteers of various mountains. The religious culture of Nepal also takes a large number of people to the holy shrines like Gosaikunda. This exposes a huge population to the high altitude. In addition, about 35% of Nepal 's population resides in the altitude above 2500m.

Ironically, very few people are aware as to the cause of altitude sickness. The prevailing myths and the scarcity of other activities in the high altitude make our backwardness in the field evident. The indifference coupled with the lack of knowledge of Nepali doctors in this field is a matter of further embarrassment. Several researches are carried out in our Himalayas every year and in fact only we possess the ‘lab situated at the highest altitude ‘in the world. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of our medical community harbor the knowledge of high altitude medicine and less has visited the Himalayas themselves.

In the light of this uncomfortable situation, we were a group of like minded people determined to popularize mountain medicine among the medical society. We felt that a lot could be done here and we should be the ones contributing a large share in anything regarding this field.

Altitude sickness and problems due to altitude are simple, preventable and easily manageable. On the other hand, people could die unnecessarily just because of the lack of some simple information which is more true in our country where people must venture to high altitude environments for their bread and butter.

With the rapid increase in the number of medical professionals in our country and worldwide, there definitely will be a lot of competition in getting into any specialty and getting anywhere in the medical field. At the same time mountain medicine could serve as an interesting alternative choice. This probably is the only field where there is everything- adventure, action, peace, reward, fitness and the most important is the basic issues which still need proper addressing and exploration, which keeps open an intriguing field of research. It will not be otherwise to state that it is only in the mountains where science meets spiritualism.

This very theme led to the establishment of Mountain Medicine Society of Nepal (MMSN), the beginning of an organized move in the history of mountain medicine in Nepal .