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Healthcare education with virtual-world simulations

Published: 03 May 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Becoming a skilled professional requires the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and the practice of skills under the guidance of an expert. The idea of learning-through-apprenticeship is long accepted in medicine and, more generally, in the health sciences, where practicum courses are an essential part of most curricula. Because of the high cost of apprenticeship programs -- mentors can usually supervise few trainees and trainees may need long apprenticeship periods - simulation has long been adopted as a learning-by-doing training method that can supplement apprenticeship in many professional and engineering programs, including the health sciences. In this paper, we describe our experience developing virtual world-based training systems for two healthcare contexts. In one, procedural training was emphasized, while the other focused on teaching communication skills. In each case, we developed a custom set of tools to meet the needs of that context. We present an analysis of the case studies, and lessons drawn from this analysis.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SEHC '10: Proceedings of the 2010 ICSE Workshop on Software Engineering in Health Care
    May 2010
    126 pages
    ISBN:9781605589732
    DOI:10.1145/1809085
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    Published: 03 May 2010

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    1. medical education
    2. virtual worlds

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    • (2016)Clinical Virtual WorldsProfessional Development and Workplace Learning10.4018/978-1-4666-8632-8.ch046(817-836)Online publication date: 2016
    • (2016)A 3D Visualization Approach for Process Training in Office EnvironmentsOn the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: OTM 2016 Conferences10.1007/978-3-319-48472-3_24(418-436)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2016
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