Clinic to Classroom and Back: Alum Returns to Nepal to Re-envision Healthcare.
Clinic to Classroom and Back: Alum Returns to Nepal to Re-envision Healthcare
Driven to make healthcare in Nepal more affordable and accessible, Sanjiv Gupta (SPH ’25) left his job as a rural physician, launched a clinic of his own, studied healthcare management at the School of Public Health, and has now returned to put the ideas he cultivated in Boston into action.
The patient had a run-of-the-mill fever. He could have easily been treated in an outpatient clinic and discharged home, recalls Sanjiv Gupta (SPH‘25). Yet Gupta, then a young physician, encountered the 10-year-old boy during rounds of the hospital inpatient ward, where the child had been admitted to receive intravenous fluids. The child’s grandfather, an elderly man in his 70’s, pulled Gupta aside. Weeping, the man explained that his only son had died while working abroad, leaving the grandfather as the sole breadwinner for the family. Despite having sold his greatest asset, a water buffalo, he knew he still did not have enough money to cover the bill for his grandson’s treatment. Gupta felt for the man and went to the hospital administration to advocate for the child’s discharge.
“There’s no need for these fancy investigations,” Gupta said. Unmoved, the administration instructed him not to interfere, responding, “That’s our job to decide. Your job is only to treat patients.”
Gupta, who grew up in a remote village of Nepal, had pursued a medical education—graduating from one of the finest universities in the country, Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences,—to help people like his family and neighbors. He never intended to bankrupt those in need of his help.
“That moment changed everything for me,” Gupta said. He told the administration to withhold the cost of the treatment from his salary, and he resigned, determined to open his own clinic.
In 2017, Gupta established a small clinic called Bhaktivedanta Community Hospital, a reflection of his ultimate ambition to open a full-fledged hospital.
In the first two years, the patient volume at Gupta’s clinic doubled as he expanded services to include diagnostics and family healthcare. He later launched home services, community health programs, and school health partnerships. Gupta taught himself operations, finances, and proposal writing. Along the way, he made many mistakes, he says. But the clinic continued to grow, and over the years, he secured a cumulative $500,000 in grants to build a new hospital wing—expected to serve more than 15,000 patients annually upon completion.
Gupta decided then that it was time to pursue a more scientific and systematic education in healthcare administration, and in 2023 he secured a Fulbright Scholarship to come to the U.S. and study at the School of Public Health.
Determined to make the most of his two short years in Boston, Gupta made it his mission to seize every opportunity to come his way, at SPH and beyond. He pursued certificates in healthcare management and pharmaceutical development, delivery, and access as part of the MPH program. He tutored peers as a teaching assistant for the Principles and Practices in Non-Profit Healthcare Accounting (PM 734) and Health Systems, Law and Policy (PH 719) courses. He cross-registered for courses at the Questrom School of Business. He spent his weekends at Innovation Café in Cambridge, a community hub for entrepreneurship.
For his practicum, Gupta completed Innovate@BU’s Summer Accelerator, a ten-week intensive program providing select BU students with mentorship and financial support as they work to launch an early-stage venture. Gupta founded a telehealth company focused on lower middle-income countries and piloted it in Nepal. The company uses internet of things (IOT) devices to remotely monitor vital signs and support diagnosis, making advanced care accessible in rural areas.
“Before, telehealth was just video conferencing—now, a clinician can remotely listen to heart sounds in real time. An [ear, nose, and throat] specialist can see your eardrum. These are advances in the west, but completely unknown to the rest of the world, so we’re just bridging those gaps,” says Gupta. “And we are bringing awareness to rural communities about technology in healthcare.”
Christopher Louis, clinical professor and interim chair in the Department of Health Law, Policy, and Management, director of SPH’s healthcare management program, and Gupta’s former instructor and advisor, describes him as “humble, interested, and kind,” and ranks him among the most teachable people he has ever encountered.
“He has an entrepreneurial mind, which helped him take ideas and turn them into tangible initiatives that made an impact on the organizations he was working with,” said Louis. “I have no doubt that he will continue to innovate and transform his ideas into community-based programs and solutions that enhance the lives of people across the globe.”
Among Gupta’s many activities as a student, he consulted on a quality improvement project for Boston Medical Center, studied the cost-effectiveness of different methods of service delivery for the Boston nonprofit Accompany Doula Care, helped to develop a chatbot for the nonprofit digital health company Dimagi, conducted market research for the biotechnology company Materialize Bio, and on sustainability for one of AdventHealth’s Florida-Based hospital systems.
Upon his graduation in May 2025, Gupta’s far-reaching engagement earned him the 2025 John Snow, Inc. Award in Global Health. Sponsored by the global health consulting firm of the same name, the annual award acknowledges an SPH student for their outstanding accomplishments and leadership potential.
Having now returned to Nepal, Gupta has big ideas for how to use technology to advance health equity, as well as a potential new advisory role with Nepal’s Ministry of Health. “I [fore]see more AI-based services in operations, in clinical services, that would empower doctors to treat more patients more efficiently. Hopefully, technology will help bring more equity to healthcare. […] I came to Boston with a mindset of fixing healthcare, but now, I feel empowered to reimagine the whole health system,” he says. “I have that confidence thanks to BUSPH.”
