Students of AIIMS in the city will soon be able to attend real-time lectures like their counterparts of the New Delhi campus.

AIIMS-Patna is all set to collaborate with National Knowledge Network (NKN), which will help it avail facilities like virtual classes and e-library besides collaboration in research and telemedicine facilities with other centres for higher learning across the country.

Institute director G.K. Singh said the NKN centre would be inaugurated at the institute in the last week of July.

“While our students will be able to access lectures of other medical colleges while sitting in their classrooms through video-conferencing, doctors and researchers of our institute would also be able to share their expertise with their counterparts at other campuses. During minute surgeries, even experienced doctors face difficulties and live consultation with others would be of much help to them. Also, our students would be able to watch live telecast of critical surgeries from other hospitals which will help expand their knowledge on a particular subject,” said Singh

“Initially, only virtual classes and e-library will be started. Later, we have plans to introduce telemedicine — the use of telecommunication by which clinical information can be shared. We would also use the telemedicine service in ambulance operations by which doctors sitting here would be able to detect the condition of patients in the ambulances and they would guide the paramedical staff accordingly,” added Singh.

Incidentally, the city campus is not spending a single penny for starting the new facility. “We already have an advanced network — ‘gigabit passive optical network’ (GPON). So we are not going to spend money for establishing the network. NKN will provide us access to their satellite through which we would be able to connect to all the institutes that are registered with it,” said Singh.

Students and teachers of AIIMS-Patna are quite excited at the new beginning. Sanjeev Kumar, a doctor with its cardio-thoracic department, said: “Apart from virtual classes, the e-library facility would boost learning experience. Our students will be updated as they would be able to see live telecast of ongoing research work at other medical colleges,” he said.

Jagdish Singh, a student, was all praise for the initiative also. “It’s a dream come true for us as we can attend the lectures at other medical colleges.”

Students of two other medical colleges in the city — Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) and Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) — are apparently jealous of their AIIMS counterparts. Shuchi Smita, an MBBS first-year student of the PMCH, said: “Many times, we find difficulty in understanding classes of one teacher because there might be some problem in the way s/he is briefing us. Through NKN centre, AIIMS students will be able to attend lectures of other medical colleges also through video-conferencing. If they do not understand something in their classes, they can take some tips from the virtual ones.”

Neither of the two government medical colleges is registered as the NKN members.

Ambrin Akhtar, an MBBS first-year student of NMCH, said: “We have never seen an e-library at our college but AIIMS students will get this facility. I am really jealous of them.”