Bringing bilingual AI-simulated practice to medical undergraduates in Palestine.
In a landmark partnership, AAUP became the first institution in the region to adopt MedAscend, giving its medical undergraduates on-demand, bilingual Arabic and English AI-simulated consultations with personalised feedback after every encounter.
The challenge
Across the region, simulated-patient programmes are difficult to staff at the scale needed to support every medical undergraduate. AAUP wanted to give its students equitable access to high-quality, repeatable communication and decision-making practice in both Arabic and English, without compromising on realism, feedback quality or assessability.
The partnership
Under the leadership of Professor Malik Zeben, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and Dr. Mahdi Al-Jamal, AAUP launched MedAscend across its undergraduate medical cohort, the first adoption of an AI virtual patient platform in the region.
Students engage with fully AI-powered virtual patients who move, speak, express emotions and respond dynamically to clinical questioning, with each encounter designed to test and strengthen communication, diagnostic and clinical reasoning skills in a safe, repeatable environment.
“A qualitative shift in medical training. For the first time in Palestine, students can practise live, conversational consultations with emotionally intelligent AI patients.”
What we built with AAUP
Faculty co-designed bilingual personas, rubrics and scenarios, with culturally adapted histories and decision points across primary care and acute medicine. Learners access encounters on personal devices outside teaching hours, with transcript-based feedback returned in the language of the encounter.
Outcomes
Early-pilot data is being collated jointly with AAUP faculty, with three peer-reviewed publications underway to advance the global evidence base for AI in medical education. Detailed quantitative outcomes will be published here on completion of the evaluation.
- 3
- peer-reviewed publications underway with AAUP
- AR / EN
- personas, rubrics and feedback in both languages
- Faculty-led
- scenario co-design with AAUP educators
- Cohort-wide
- rollout across the Faculty of Medicine
What AAUP faculty said
“This achievement reflects the University's commitment to adopting modern technologies in medical education. Integrating AI into clinical training strengthens our leadership position in the region and aligns our teaching with global standards.”
“Launching this platform enables students to practise clinical communication and decision-making safely and innovatively. Our partnership with MedAscend sets a model for international collaboration and knowledge exchange.”
What's next
Scaling to additional year groups, integrating OSCE-style assessment circuits aligned with AAUP's curriculum milestones, and expanding access to students across the wider region through ongoing joint research with AAUP faculty.
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