Pema Dorji (doctor)

Pema Dorji (1936 to 2009) was a Bhutanese drungtsho, a physician-pharmacist of traditional Bhutanese and Tibetan medicine, who is remembered as the person who brought that tradition into Bhutan's public institutions. Born at Tashi Dingkha in the Trongsa district into a family of traditional physicians, he began his training in Kurtoe under a relative who had served as personal physician to a queen, then went to the Chagpori traditional medical college in Lhasa in 1946 and studied there for seven years in the Sowa Rigpa tradition, qualifying in 1953. After working under his uncle at Trongsa Dzong, he helped found the first government traditional clinic and dispensary at Dechencholing near Thimphu in 1968, and in 1979 he established the National Indigenous Medicine Hospital in Thimphu. He was decorated with the Druk Thugsey Award in 1999 for this service.