The Centre for Innovation in Medical Education (CIME), a hi-tech facility at the Aga Khan University, for technology-based learning for health professionals, inaugurated by the Chancellor Prince Karim Aga Khan.

The Chancellor acknowledged the contributions made for the advancement of healthcare, asserting that the civil society was inadequately provided with a service or facility of education in Pakistan. He expressed his gratitude to all those who supported to sustain the university, and further added that they should position this institution in service to Pakistan.

CIME has a mission to transform the education of health professionals with replication and virtual reality technology to develop knowledge and skills before treating patients.

Dr. Charles Docherty, director of the CIME said that the center aimed 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.

The department 80,000-square foot and Rs 1.6 billion ($15 million) donor-funded center consists of 3 buildings the Maryam Bashir Dawood Building, the Ibn Sina Building and the Shiraz Boghani Building.

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

CIME supports student-centered, problem-based, and team-based learning, like learning from other such centers around the world.

High-speed communications technology allows video connectivity throughout CIME, international experts offering a global classroom and hence students being able to learn from specialists anywhere in the world in real-time.

This connectivity also allows CIME to work with remote and rural populations within Pakistan to expand access to quality healthcare.

AKU President Firoz Rasul said that technology-enabled learning has the potential to transform how students and professionals can be trained to face most pressing issues of society. AKU has been the recipient of significant philanthropic support,” he acknowledged.

The inauguration of was part of Aga Khan’s state visit to Pakistan on his Diamond Jubilee: the 60th anniversary of his accession as the Spiritual leader of the Shia Ismaili community in 1957.