MONTEGO BAY, St James — With funding from Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) used to complete work on its facilities, Bioprist Institute of Medical Sciences and Health Professionals (BIMSHP) has set mid-June as the tentative date to open its doors.

“The delay was caused by the work to complete the building due to funds. However, with the support of the DBJ, we have been able to move forward,” BIMSHP founder, president, and executive chairman, Dr Guna Muppuri, told the Jamaica Observer on Monday.

The original start of classes was supposed to be August 2023, but it was pushed back to October.

“On June 17 we want to open the doors for admissions if we get the student quota. If not, we will open for August, as is [the case] with the traditional American system, in the fall,” Dr Muppuri told the Observer last week.

A raft of scholarships has been rolled out to pique potential students’ interest, including one that will benefit the inaugural batch. Each student will have 94 per cent of his or her US$70,000 tuition fee covered.

It is technically a two-year scholarship, but the funds will be disbursed over the four-year duration of the course to guard against dropouts.

“It’s about student retention because we would not want the students to do the two years and then move on. So this support comes with that condition, and if they move on before the four years, then they pay back,” Dr Muppuri said.

He added that, in addition, students will have access to 18 different scholarships each year. This includes the Governor General’s scholarship, which provides the recipient with US$10,000 each year for the duration of the programme.

Students are expected to come from both Jamaica and overseas.

The BIMSHP facility will have the capacity to accommodate about 450 students at any one time. There will be labs, classrooms, and a library, among other areas designed for learning.

Last minute touches are now being carried out on the building, which is located in Ironshore, Montego Bay. Over the next few days, the training institute will also be scrutinised as part of its efforts to eventually become accredited.

“We have an inspection on May 6 to 7 by Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and Other Health Professions (CAAM-HP),” Dr Muppuri revealed.

He has steadily pitched BIMSHP as a state-of-the-art facility.

“We will be like the Tesla among the medical schools; it is revolutionary what we have done,” he boasted.

He explained that among the tools that students will be able to access will be an Anatomage Table, which is a piece of equipment that has five cadavres digitally stored within. Through the manipulation of a tablet or their computer screens, students can dissect and study these cadavres from a micro level to the full body.

“We are the very first institution in the entire northern Caribbean that has this table,” Dr Muppuri stated.

Students will also benefit from a digital learning platform as well as the use of holographic technology.

“There is nobody in the Caribbean and Central America that has HoloLens. We are the first for this area. Just before us, one school got it in Columbia, but for the Caribbean and Central America we are the pioneers,” said the BIMSHP founder.

These technological inputs, he explained, have come courtesy of support provided by the DBJ earlier this year.

“We are saying salute and hats off to the Development Bank of Jamaica, who, upon seeing our story in the Jamaica Observer, came forward and gave us this kind of funding to develop the school,” Dr Muppuri remarked.

“Maximum ceiling is US$10 million or $1.5 billion, so that’s why we are very proud to declare and announce here that Development Bank of Jamaica is facilitating economic growth and development,” he added.

The funding, he said, is being used to outfit the institution with the highest levels of technology.

“Holoanatomy lab, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality-driven technology, integrated interactive learning of medicine, we couldn’t have done it without the DBJ,” he disclosed.

This is not the first time Bioprist has benefited from DBJ support. In 2016 its business process outsourcing arm received similar funding.

“DBJ has always been a game changer for Bioprist’s growth so that Bioprist could deliver real economic growth that the country requires,” Dr Muppuri said.