The Ann Myers Medical Center Part 2: Virtual Meeting
First, I must apologize to the fans of this blog who were looking for a post on Friday: I didn’t get to it. Last week I was inundated with project and sales work, and by the time I realized on Saturday night that I never posted, I figured I’d just wait until Tuesday to post again.
Second, I want to send out a sincere thanks on behalf of the New York Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Meetup to Dr. Ann Buchanan, Dr. CC Carnell, and Davis Stastny. Last night, they generously donated their time and energy to our group to present the Ann Myers Medical Center on the Sprott-Shaw College virtual campus and its vision for now and for the future. You may have read about the virtual Ann Myers Medical center previously on this blog (see “A Virtual Resource: The Ann Myers Medical Center“), where I interviewed Dr. Ann and Dr. CC of the founding of the center and its genesis to what it is today.
We began the night at about 6:30pm EST with Dr. Ann, and she made introductions of people around the room (and apparently, around the world) who all were using and growing the center in different and innovative ways. She first introduced 2 Co-Directors of the AMMC, Dr. CC Carnell, and Dr. Stephanos Kowalski. Dr. Carnell is the main Director for the center in Second Life and a Gastroenterologist and Endoscopist from Spain. For her, the meeting had started at around 12:30am local time, and was thus off to bed shortly after the meeting began. She thanked us all for attending and stayed a short time before disappearing into virtual thin air. Dr. Kowalski is also a Gastroenterologist, but hails from Brazil.
Dr. Ann introduced others who participate, collaborate, and help to run the center before she gave a brief history of the center and how she decided to actively pursue its development in Second Life. As I explored with her in my previous article, Dr. Ann indicated that she was inspired with her idea for the medical center while watching a friend fiddle with Second Life one day. She believed this virtual world could support an educational center that would give students the opportunity to train on their own terms and as often as they wished. Students from a broad range of disciplines could benefit from this kind of setup, including those studying in different areas of the medical, nursing and psychology fields. This virtual space could also serve as a place to host research and medical conventions, perhaps being more convenient to those for whom travel might not be possible in the real world.
She also spoke of the intention to develop the center as a place where people who are ill or disabled can enter the virtual realm and seek medical opinions, referrals or discussion with real medical students, physicians, nurses or even psychologists. Dr. Ann touted the center’s success in already being able to refer virtual patients with real medical centers in their local area for help, where this information may not be readily available to them with other resources.
As the doctor gave up the virtual stage and prepared for the next speaker, it was interesting to see how people acted in this virtual world. Sure, nobody actually had to make their avatars do anything. They could simply give their speech to the crowd from a seat somewhere in the room, or even outside of the room. The context of the meeting would be entirely textual, and quite frankly a little more difficult to follow. However, the very act of walking off the stage, inviting another person to get up and stand in front of the crowd and even interact with the objects within the world somehow did make the meeting more “real” than just reading lines of text on a computer screen. It gave me a better sense that there was someone behind the virtual representation I was seeing.
Vera Zhaoying was the next speaker, a Dutch medical student who shared her experience as a student participating in the center. She honed her medical skills as an intern in a real life school, gaining a thorough understanding on performing routine physicals and getting an exam history. It was not until she started participating in the Ann Myers Medical Center, however, that she learned how to listen. As she said in her presentation, “The patient often reveals many important aspects of their disorder through their words if the physician takes the time to listen. In this fast-paced world, med students are are not being appropriately trained to [do that].” She credits the center with giving her a safe haven to develop her listening skills and patience with…well…patients. There was no pressure for her here to get the diagnosis “right,” because all the patients were virtual, giving her the benefit of being able to make mistakes and get feedback without worrying about the impact of her decisions. Her enthusiasm for the project is evident throughout her presentation, and she appears to be one of the biggest proponents of what is to come.
JS Vavoom was next on stage with a brief presentation of his training program in Second Life. A Registered Nurse of 30 plus years and faculty for 25 years at the Tacoma Community College in Tacoma, Washington, JS is somewhat of a pioneer in Second Life. He is just finishing up a graduate level course at Boise State University on teaching in this world, using places here to reinforce medical content or theory using the tools that are available in this world to more easily conceptualize concepts that might be difficult to communicate solely on paper. His biggest challenge, at the moment, is familiarizing his students with the in-world environment and getting them accustomed to the quirks that can sometimes make collaboration difficult, such as the occasional instability of a simulator. With any luck, however, he’s hoping that he’ll be able to proliferate the use of the virtual world both within his department and with other departments throughout his college.
Even the American Cancer Society (ACS) was represented at our meeting that night. RC Mars was next invited up and gave a brief introduction to the ACS and their genuine interest in the Second Life community. Their biggest event, the Relay for Life, is an event that was started in the real world in 1985 when a colorectal surgeon ran around a track in Tacoma, Washington for 24 hours, raising $27,000 to support the American Cancer Society. (1) The event is now held in 24 countries around the globe, and 2007 marked its 3rd year in Second life. Real-world places such as Mexico, New York City, Paris, Sweden and South Africa are all represented in the event, and different virtual activities litter the trail for participants.
In closing, David Stastny took the computer-generated stage in his capacity as the Sprott-Shaw College Manager, and highlighted the accomplishments of the program, as well as its goal to be an innovator in education within Second Life. Even though I was looking at a virtual representation of the man, he seemed enthusiastic about the direction of the organization.
In the last post I did on the AMMC, I spoke of the synergy that seemed to exist between Dr. Ann and Dr. CC. I believe I can say that this synergy seemed to exist among all of the AMMC members, not just the two directors I met only a few weeks ago. I believe there is tremendous potential within this virtually limitless center, as I called it, to explore new methods and theories surrounding human behavior, health, and medical collaboration.
The technology does come with its limits, however, which may negatively impact the speed at which this world is adopted and accepted as an effective tool. Students may find the use of this software as necessary, even fun, to stay ahead of trends, much as students did in my college with the first introduction of the World Wide Web. However, I believe the tool needs to be refined for an older generation who may already be techno-phobic, and will have more reason to be so if they’re forced to use something like Second Life to improve their practice. You may recall my father-in-law from a few posts back who decided to give me a flu shot this year. In spite of his calm and re-assuring demeanor, I was scared silly by the anticipation of the needle penetrating my arm to deliver the vaccine. Similarly, if I were to place a laptop in front of him and force him to use it for medical collaboration, he may have a reaction much like mine to the needle.
I have no doubt that this technology will take the world by storm in some form in the near future, and it will be driven by people like Dr. Ann Buchanan, Dr. CC Carnell, and Davis Stastny. I just hope that the media is developed into a form that more and more people find accessible.
What do you think?
To find out more about the Ann Myers Medical Center in second life and its current activities, go to: http://www.ammc.wordpress.com.
(1) See “Second Life Relay for Life,” American Cancer Society, 2007.
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[...] on my screen (to read more about the first lecture I attended, which was not voice enabled, click here). There were some technical difficulties to start (objects creating the ever-present sound of waves [...]