A Retrospective Review of TATRC Funding for Medical Modeling and Simulation Technologies

Pugh, Carla M. MD, PhD; Bevan, Matthew G. PhD; Duve, Rebecca J. MS; White, Heather L. BA; Magee, J. Harvey BA; Wiehagen, Gene B. BS

Pub med ID 21546864

Introduction: In February 2000, the U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) and the U.S. Army's Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation Command cohosted an Integrated Research Team conference in Maryland. The goal of the conference was to enable end users, researchers, materiel developers, and other government agencies to present their conceptions of how modeling and simulation could and should be developed to meet military medical needs. During the past 9 years, TATRC has funded more than 175 projects relating to simulation.

Methods: This study was a retrospective review of TATRC's Modeling and Simulation Training projects (N = 175).
Results: Our results show that most (>75%) of the funded projects in this study involved industry. More than 85% of the projects that involved industry focused on technology development. Industry development projects seemed to meet their deliverables in a timely fashion. However, academia projects using industry-developed technologies and prototypes were delayed largely because the technologies did not meet their needs.

Discussion: There seems to be a measurable gap between industry's definition of a completed product technology and academia's ability to implement and use the technology in interactive learning environments. Our findings support the need for a standardized strategic design process that involves a strong industry-academia collaboration and early end-user testing to better facilitate the development of sound requirements that guide technology development.

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Using Second Life Virtual Simulation Environment for Mock Oral Emergency Medicine Examination.

Schwaab J, Kman N, Nagel R, Bahner D, Martin DR, Khandelwal S, Vozenilek J,
Danforth DR, Nelson R.


From the Department of Emergency Medicine (JS, NK, DB, DRM, SK, RNe), the Center
for Education and Scholarship (RNa), and the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynecology (DRD), The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; and the Department of
Emergency Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University (JV),
Chicago, IL.

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE 2011; 18:1-4 © 2011 by the Society for Academic
Emergency Medicine

ABSTRACT: Objectives:  Oral examination is a method used to
evaluate emergency medicine (EM) residents and is a requirement for board
certification of emergency physicians. Second Life (SL) is a virtual
three-dimensional (3-D) immersive learning environment that has been used for
medical education. In this study we explore the use of SL virtual simulation
technology to administer mock oral examinations to EM residents.

Methods:  This was a prospective observational study of EM residents who had previously
completed mock oral examinations, participating in a similar mock oral
examination case scenario conducted via SL. EM residents in this training program
completed mock oral examinations in a traditional format, conducted face to face
with a faculty examiner. All current residents were invited to participate in a
similar case scenario conducted via SL for this study. The examinee managed the
case while acting as the physician avatar and communicated via headset and
microphone from a remote computer with a faculty examiner who acted as the
patient avatar. Participants were surveyed regarding their experience with the
traditional and virtual formats using a Likert scale.

Results:  Twenty-seven EM
residents participated in the virtual oral examination. None of the examinees had
used SL previously. SL proved easy for examinees to log into (92.6%) and navigate
(96.3%). All felt comfortable communicating with the examiner via remote
computer. Most examinees thought the SL encounter was realistic (92.6%), and many
found it more realistic than the traditional format (70.3%). All examinees felt
that the virtual examination was fair, objective, and conducted efficiently. A
majority preferred to take oral examinations via SL over the traditional format
and expressed interest in using SL for other educational experiences (66.6 and
92.6%, respectively).

Conclusions:  Application of SL virtual simulation
technology is a potential alternative to traditional mock oral examinations for
EM residents.


PMID: 21521404 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]