Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) originated in the year 1823 as the Ecole de Medicine de Pondicherry established by the French Government It was renamed as Dhanvantari Medical College in 1956 at the time of de facto transfer of Pondicherry to Government of India JIPMER was established in its current campus in 1964 and is spread over 192 2 acres JIPMER is well known for its undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses and its alumni have excelled in different disciplines all over the world On 14th July 2008, JIPMER was declared an Institution of National Importance and became autonomous by an Act of Parliament It awards degrees under Clauses 23 & 24 of the JIPMER Act, 2008 Various courses are offered in JIPMER It runs an MBBS course taking 150 students each year after a nationally held entrance exam In addition, postgraduate programs (MD/ MS) are offered in 23 disciplines, Super Specialty programmes (DM/ MCh) in 10 and 7 disciplines respectively, Ph D programs in 8 disciplines and Fellowship courses in 4 disciplines JIPMER also conducts other courses including B Sc Nursing (75 seats/yr), 5 MSc Nursing, 10 B Sc Allied Medical Sciences (58 seats), 5 M Sc Allied Medical Sciences and MPH (25 seats/ year) JIPMER conducts a nationally acclaimed ten day National Course on Educational Science for Teachers of Health professionals twice a year The NTTC is the only one among the five such centres to continue its National Course and till date more than 1600 participants have been trained in education technology The Department of Medical Education has been recognised as an MCI Regional Faculty Development Centre in 2015 JIPMER has been promoting research activities in medical sciences since its inception This research may be in the form of faculty research projects, postgraduate dissertation work, PhD thesis work and undergraduate research projects and may involve human or animal subjects JIPMER has a well-equipped Central Library which houses more than 75,000 books, journals and a computer lab JIPMER has excellent health care facilities (more than 40 departments) and most of the patients treated here belong to low socioeconomic group The hospital currently has bed strength of 2059 and has several inpatient wings In addition to the main hospital, the Super Specialty Block, Emergency Medical Services, Women and Children Hospital and Regional Cancer Centre provide state of the art medical care in different areas largely to poor patients from Puducherry and many districts of Tamil Nadu as well as patients from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar The daily average OPD attendance is more than 5000 with a yearly OPD attendance of more than 15 million The daily average EMS attendance is more than 700 and the annual attendance is more than 2 lakhs Yearly admissions are more than 60,000 and the hospital performs more than 3 5 million investigations yearly JIPMER has a sprawling Hostel Complex with common facilities to accommodate nearly 1100 students Outreach activities at the rural and urban health centers of JIPMER include service provision for approximately 2000 families in each service area (approximately 20,000 population) Presently JIPMER has staff strength of about 5000 with more than 2000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in all streams; and more than 300 faculty members JIPMER seeks to be a model for health systems in India through innovations in education, patient oriented research, population health and service excellence JIPMER aims to develop compassionate, ethically sound health professionals and provide service of the highest order across the healthcare continuum, through innovations in education that yield lifelong learners and leaders in health care JIPMER is the Regional Resource Centre (RRC) for implementation of NMCN Project (Telemedicine) for 160 Medical Colleges of Southern States (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry)