About CARS
CARS trains physicians from Central Asia and Switzerland to teach respiratory medicine. The programme draws on evidence-based clinical protocols and the long-running Kyrgyz-Swiss research collaboration on high-altitude respiratory disease.
CARS is an academic programme that trains physician-educators in respiratory medicine across Central Asia. It operates inside the Kyrgyz-Swiss High-Altitude Medicine and Research Initiative. Its co-directors are physicians at the University Hospital Zurich (USZ) and the National Center of Cardiology and Internal Medicine in Bishkek.
The programme follows a faculty development model. CARS members are practising clinicians and academic staff who themselves build and deliver teaching modules around Entrusted Professional Activities (EPAs). EPA is an international standard that grounds each module in a concrete clinical case, fixes the learning objectives, and requires supervised work with residents.
Programme structure
- Programme committee
The programme's collegial governing body. The committee reviews applications from physicians, signs off on finished teaching modules, and decides which academic topics CARS takes on in the next cycle.
- Co-directors
The programme has two co-directors. Prof. Konrad E. Bloch (University Hospital Zurich) is responsible for the academic direction and the link to the Swiss research base. Prof. Talant M. Sooronbaev (National Center of Cardiology and Internal Medicine, Bishkek) runs the clinical side and the relationship with healthcare institutions across Central Asia. Together they shape workshop content and choose the teaching topics.
- Faculty
Faculty comes from clinics in Switzerland and Central Asia. They run the clinical and theoretical parts of each workshop, help members refine their EPA modules, and work directly with residents during the closing symposium.
- Members (Fellows)
Senior clinicians and academic staff in respiratory medicine from Central Asia and Switzerland. They go through faculty development training on the workshops, build their own EPA modules, and afterwards bring what they learned back to the residents at their home institutions.