Simulator firm names new president

SARASOTA — Dr. Robert Amyot has been named president of CAE Healthcare, the Sarasota division of a $2.1 billion global civil aviation and defense training firm.

Amyot replaces Mike Bernstein, who had run the business since 2009, when it was Medical Education Technologies, or METI. Montreal-based CAE bought METI in August 2011 in a $130 million deal. The firm makes and sells lifelike human patient and surgical simulators for use in medical training and education, and is considered an industry leader in that area.

Bernstein, a longtime health care industry executive, had planned to leave the company after a transition period under CAE. Amyot, a cardiologist echocardiographer and onetime associate professor of medicine at the University of Montreal, has been chief medical officer and vice president for medical programs at CAE Healthcare since January 2012. Before that he was the firm's director of ultrasound education.

Amyot also has an extensive background in the medical simulation field. He invented an ultrasound simulator at a firm he co-founded, VIMEDIX Virtual Medical Imaging Training Systems. That simulator, the company says, is now used in several leading medical centers worldwide, including the Mayo Clinic, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital. CAE Healthcare acquired Amyot's firm in January 2010.

METI had around 200 employees and $55 million in annual sales when CAE bought it.