Gohar Panajyan (AUA MPH 1997) Appointed as Deputy Director of the State Health Inspectorate of the RA Ministry of Health – 09-06-2014

Gohar Panajyan, MD, MPH has been appointed as the Deputy Director of the newly restructured State Health Inspectorate (SHI) of the Ministry of Health, Republic of Armenia. Dr. Panajyan is responsible for overseeing the areas pertinent to Quality of Health Care Services, Medication/Drug Control, Medical Advertisement and Medical Licensure. 

Gohar Panajyan is one of the alumni from the first graduating cohort of AUA’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program in 1997. As a resident-clincian and an Ob/Gyn practitioner, Gohar had worked at the Armenian Research Center of Maternal/Child Health protection and had been responsible for clinical MCH service delivery during 1995-2000. An accomplished public health practitioner and clinician (obstetrician-gynecologist), Gohar has more than 16 years of experience in managing and coordinating international health programs and initiatives with a particular focus on Reproductive/Maternal and Child Health (RH/MCH). She served as a technical expert/consultant with UNDP, UNICEF, TACIS, AUA Center for Health Services Research and Development (CHSR). She was the Deputy Director for the USAID’s Global Networks for Health project in Armenia (2000) and worked at USAID-funded NOVA/NOVA2 projects as the Performance Improvement Team Leader and the Quality HealthCare Services Senior Expert during the period of 2004-2011. She had been serving as the Armenia Country Coordinator for the USAID-funded Maternal/Newborn health/Non-communicable diseases practices’ assessment in Armenia, implemented by USAID/Health Care Improvement Project through University Research Company (URC), LLC (2011). During 2011-2013, Gohar was the MCH/RH advisor in the USAID-supported Health Systems Strengthening in Armenia (HS-STAR) project and later served as the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist of the USAID’s Direct grant program to the Ministry of Health to support the Emergency medical services (EMS) to the population of Armenia (April-November, 2013).

Dr. Panajyan is an author of more than 30 articles, research papers and analytical reports related to clinical and organizational aspects of RH/MCH and EMS services’ delivery published in different peer-reviewed journals in Armenia, Europe and the United States. Gohar Panajyan is a member of the Armenian Association of Obstetrician-Gynecologists, Armenian Public Health Alliance, the International Union of Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) and the European Society of Contraception and Reproductive Health (ESC).