Borderless Health — API

The backend for Borderless Health, a cross-border telemedicine platform. Built with Express and MongoDB (Mongoose), with JWT auth and Cloudinary for image/document uploads.

🔗 Client repo / demo: https://borderless-app-client.vercel.app/

Features

• Auth — register (patient / physician), login, and a /auth/me endpoint that returns the user and their profile.
• Users — patient and physician profiles with image (and document, for patients) uploads via Cloudinary.
• Departments — CRUD-ish endpoints with images, specialties, and reviews.
• Reviews — patients review departments (rating + comment).
• Connections — patient ↔ physician consultation requests with accept / decline.

Tech stack

• Express + Mongoose (MongoDB)
• JWT (jsonwebtoken) + bcrypt for auth
• Multer + Cloudinary for file uploads
• CORS, morgan

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• A MongoDB database (local or Atlas)
• A Cloudinary account (for uploads)

Setup

npm install

Create a .env file in the project root:

PORT=5005
ORIGIN=http://localhost:5173          # client URL, for CORS
MONGODB_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/borderless
TOKEN_SECRET=your-jwt-secret
CLOUDINARY_NAME=your-cloud-name
CLOUDINARY_KEY=your-api-key
CLOUDINARY_SECRET=your-api-secret

Run

npm run dev     # start with --watch (auto-restart on changes)
npm start       # start normally

Server runs at http://localhost:5005, with all routes mounted under /api.

API overview

Method	Endpoint	Notes
POST	/api/auth/login	returns { authToken }
GET	/api/auth/me	current user + profile (auth)
POST	/api/users/patient	register patient (multipart)
POST	/api/users/physician	register physician (multipart)
GET	/api/users/physicians	list/filter physicians (auth)
GET	/api/users/patients	list patients (physician only)
GET/POST	/api/departments /api/department	list / create departments
PATCH	/api/department/:id	update a department (auth)
GET/POST	/api/reviews	list / create reviews
GET/POST/PATCH	/api/connections	manage connection requests (auth)

Protected routes expect an Authorization: Bearer <token> header.

Notes

• GET /departments and GET /reviews are public so the client can show them before login.
• The ORIGIN value must match the deployed/local client URL, or requests are blocked by CORS.