Mawlana Hazar Imam inaugurated the Aga Khan University (AKU) Centre for Innovation in Medical Education (CIME), a state-of-the-art facility for technology-based learning for health professionals, on 15 December.

In his inaugural address, Mawlana Hazar Imam acknowledged the many contributions made towards the advancement of healthcare in the country stating that civil society was underserved in education in Pakistan. Expressing his gratitude to all those who had sustained the University, he said, “we should position this institution in its correct place in service to Pakistan.”

CIME’s mission is to transform the education of health professionals through the use of simulation and virtual reality technology to develop knowledge and skills before treating patients.

“The Centre aims to raise the bar for teaching and learning and to thereby deliver higher standards of practice across the professions of medicine, nursing and allied health,” said CIME Director Dr Charles Docherty. “We seek to become a strategic asset for Pakistan and the region that is at the forefront of efforts to raise the standard of healthcare.”

The Centre offers multi-purpose teaching spaces, high-fidelity simulators, and specialty environments such as the phantom-head dental lab, a cardiac catheterisation lab and telemedicine clinics.

Learning from other such centres around the world, CIME supports student-centred, problem-based, and team-based learning. Students and professionals from different disciplines work together on real-life patient simulations. For example, nurses and doctors can practice responding to a situation in which a patient stops breathing, using a high-tech mannequin that responds as a real patient would respond. Afterwards, they can watch a video of themselves and analyse their performance. 

High-speed communications technology allows video connectivity throughout CIME and with international experts, offering a truly ‘global classroom’, with students able to learn from specialists anywhere in the world in real-time. This same connectivity allows CIME to work with remote and rural populations within Pakistan and neighbouring countries to expand access to quality healthcare.

“In everything we do, as our Chancellor says, ‘we must look to the future, seeking always to think creatively, to innovate and to improve,’” said AKU President Firoz Rasul. “Technology-enabled learning has the potential to transform how we prepare students and professionals to face society’s most pressing issues. By giving today’s health professionals the most advanced facilities to work and learn together at CIME, we give them the best chance of becoming leaders capable of solving tomorrow’s healthcare challenges.”

“AKU has been the recipient of significant philanthropic support,” he added. “That support has enabled us to launch important new ventures, build new facilities and achieve ever-higher standards. We are very grateful to our donors for their extraordinary generosity.”

Mawlana Hazar Imam laid the foundation stone for the three buildings of CIME during his previous visit to Pakistan in 2013.