2010 Spring Semester Week 6: Virtual Reality in Medicine

I launched the world’s first elective course at a medical university focusing on web 2.0 and medicine for medical students in 2008. This is the 4th semester and the 6th week was dedicated to virtual worlds in medicine and healthcare. Here is the outline of my presentations.

First slideshow:

• Definition of virtual worlds
• Why do we need a second life?
• community + online games + simulation
• One example is secondlife.com

A shorter version of the original slideshow with my own narration:

• More than 20 million users, 30,000,000 online hours
• What does SL mean for people?
• It used to mean gambling (but not now)
• Game? work? (The number of Second Life residents generating more than $5,000 in monthly income has more than quadrupled to 116 in the past year, according to San Francisco’s Linden Lab, owner of Second Life.); place?; tool?; entertainment?; sport?; opportunity?; appearance?
• Technological barriers: register, download, install, open, log in
• You can fly, walk, teleport, buy, sell, build.
• Communication (chat, IM, e-mail, voice)
• advantages (3D, media content, fast communication – SL fitness)
• disadvantages (reliability, serious hardware requirement)
• why do we need a SL?

Source

• Virtual Reality (VR) examples in therapies

Take-home message: great opportunities for patients and medical professionals as well.

Second slideshow:

• Summary of how Second Life can be used in medicine and healthcare

• How do medical students and physicians use it?
• AMMC
• Imperial College of London
• NHS London
• Scifoo Lives On
• Genome Island and many more
• Patients?
• Healthinfo Island
• Virtual Ability
• SLStroke and many more
• Where to follow health events?

Take-home message: Second Life provides useful tools to organize meetings, educate and learn without borders.

Free e-guide about medicine and virtual worlds on Webicina.