virtual reality training for medical students
Anyone ever hear of an Institute for Simulation? Me neither, but apparently one exists at the University of Washington. The exact name is the Institute for Simulation and Interprofessional Studies (UW-ISIS), and they boast a program in medical simulation that aims to help doctors improve surgical dexterity, reduce error rates and foster effective teamwork.
UW eventually wants all its students who are studying in health-related fields (medicine, nursing, etc) to use the cutting-edge virtual reality technologies available at the institute before working on real patients. The Executive Director of the institute even envisions that this type of training could be used to weed out potential future surgeons. He says: “I’d rather be able to tell some surgical resident, after 25 unsuccessful tries on a simulated patient, that maybe he ought to consider going into pathology.” Hmmm…I don’t know about you, but I’d rather know that BEFORE I’m a resident.
Some more food for thought: who’s to say a student who performs well on a computer in a simulation would work just as well under particularly stressful conditions in the O.R.? That is, aren’t some things just simply impossible to simulate no matter how advanced technology gets? I guarantee that a computer program will never fully simulate the stress of when a patient is bleeding in front of you–because of you.
Regardless, I definitely see many positives in such a training experience–for example the very obvious benefit of practicing one’s skills at any time without the restriction of having to be in the O.R. In fact, I look forward to trying my hand at some of those gadgets in residency. Here is a link to the full article published January 4, 2009 on seattlepi.com (Seattle Post-Intelligencer).
