Virtual Patients Group - Improving communication skills education using virtual patients.

* - Patent Pending

Medical Experiences
		Patient-Doctor Interviews (PIs – Lind, Lok) Medical, nursing, physician assistant, and pharmacy students interview virtual patients to practice communication skills. Students use speech, gestures, and touch to conduct 10-minute interviews with a life-size 3D interactive VP. The VP interviews are based on standardized patient interviews. The focus is to improve communication skills in concert with diagnosis skills. We aim to augment existing standardized patient curricula as to provide additional opportunities for practice, standardization of experiences, feedback, and diversity of experiences. . The VP experiences have been validated, and 25 different scenarios have been built. The VP can be experienced 1) life-sized using HMDs, projectors, and TVs, 2) in Second Life, and 3) online in a web-browser. Demos: Interview a pharmacy patient online, Video chat with a pharmacy online Videos: [Overview] Publications: [Empathy with VPs] [Validity][Virtual Patients] Funded by the National Science Foundation.
		Intimate Exams (PIs – Lind, Lok, Pugh) Students practice both intimate exam procedure and the interpersonal skills with virtual patients. Students can conduct a complete clinical breast exam and prostate exam (under development). Students first interview the VP for a patient history and subsequently conduct the physical exam on physical simulators. The simulators include breast simulators (developed by Dr. Carla Pugh) combined with mannequins. The VP responds to touch, can challenge students with conversations requiring empathy, and can present a variety of conditions, such as masses. Further, the system provides both real-time and after-action visualizations of palpation pressure and completeness to enable students to work on affective, cognitive, and psychomotor skills. Videos: [Clinical Breast Exam] [VP touches back] Publications: [Clinical Breast Exam] Funded by the National Science Foundation.
		Neurological Exams* (PIs – Cendan, Lok) Virtual patients can present a variety of neurological conditions, and students conduct a neurological exam to diagnosis abnormal findings. The VP can present a range of an affected cranial nerve 3 through 7 set of conditions, and the student can ask conduct a neurological exam of the VP including: follow my finger, how many fingers am I holding up, visual acuity test (eye chart), ophthalmoscope, and for physical responses such as sticking out one’s tongue. These experiences highlight two benefits of VPs, 1) presenting conditions that standardize patients cannot easily present, and 2) to present conditions that are infrequent – often experienced ad-hoc in a “catch as catch can” manner. VPs ensure exposure and proficiency in abnormal findings that have are difficult to curricularly plan. Videos: [Cranial Nerve 3 Exam] Publications: [Eye-Exam] Funded by the National Institutes of Health.
		Conscious Sedation* (PIs – Lampotang, Lok) Students and residents practice interviewing the virtual patient while administering anesthesia to a human patient simulator. Students interact with both the virtual patient (to practice communication skills) and the human-patient simulator (to practice procedure) to experience a conscious sedation scenario. In the scenario, the student administers anesthesia to the human-patient simulator, while communicating with the VP to ensure the appropriate level of sedative is administered. Further, several different VPs can be interchanged, including changing the skin-tone, gender, and weight of the VP. Videos: [VP communicating with HPS] Publications: [in submission]
		Audiology Exams* (PIs Billinghurst, Lok) Students can administer audiology exams, including administering history, visual exams, hearing screen, and testing speech understanding. Students interact with a virtual patient to conduct a complete audiology exam. The audiology exam includes interviewing the VP for a patient history, visual examinations of the VP, a hearing screen test using a simulated audiology testing booth, and testing speech understanding. These experiences highlight 1) the ability of VPs to enable practice of both procedure and communication skills as a precursor to standardized patient encounters, and 2) the ability of VPs to present abnormal conditions, e.g. infrequent hearing symptoms. Videos [forthcoming] Publications: [system under development] Funded by the New Zealand Department of Health.
		After-Action Reviews* (PIs Lind, Lok) For all virtual patient experiences, students receive immediate feedback on their interactions, and can compare their interactions with an expert. Upon conclusion of their VP interaction, students are emailed a link of their interaction. Using a standard web browser, students can review the interaction, examine topics discussed and missed, and watch videos of themselves and of experts. This highlights the ability to provide immediate feedback (and comparison with experts) for each interaction with a VP. Also educators can review a group of interactions (such as multiple interactions of the same student or an entire class’s performance) to identify trends and outliers. Online demos: Student review system (id/pass: 10157/00000) and expert review system. Publications: [Visualization system]. Funded by the National Science Foundation.
		You, M.D. Exhibit for Public Health Literacy Education (PIs Ferdig, Lok) To be installed in the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, FL (Fall 2009), the You, M.D. exhibit has guests ages 11+ to play the role of a physician with a virtual patient while improving health literacy. In You, M.D., guests will learn about asthma, skin cancer, and health and wellness topics by first talking to Dr. Blackwell, a physician who will discuss health literacy topics, and then talking to a virtual patient, who the guest needs to show respect to and then to provide accurate information. We anticipate thousands of guests experiencing this public health literacy exhibit that will focus on helping guests become better advocates of their own health care. Videos: [forthcoming] Publications: [system under development] Funded by the National Science Foundation.
		Pain Perception (PI Lok, Robinson) Virtual patients of varying gender, age, and ethnicities are used to present different levels of pain. Medical professionals rate their perception of the virtual patient’s pain to identify personal biases. Video vignettes of virtual patients expressing different levels of pain (based of FACS models) are shown via a web browser. The VPs are of varying gender, age, and ethnicities. Health professionals (including doctors, nurses, and dentists) of different ethnicities rate the pain they perceive the VP is in. Upon completion, the system is able to identify the variables and weighting used by the user on perceiving pain. Videos: [forthcoming] Publications: [Contact Mike Robinson for details] Funded by the National Institutes of Health.