Title : Medical Educational Simulations and Visualizations in 3D Immersive Virtual Environments



Project Lead : Prasolova-Forland Ekaterina From : Norwegian University of Science and Technology (None)

Dates : from -- to 2015-02-24 23:06:48

Description :

Motivation and objectives :
Much of the medical education is geared towards patient contact. Traditionally the bulk of the students contact with the patient has been through placement in hospitals. However, as the hospitals increase their effectiveness e.g. by lean patient pathways, there is dramatically less time for contact between students and patients. As a consequence, students get less time on the task. This was one of the motivations for a Virtual University Hospital project at NTNU. As a pre-study for this project, we have implemented a virtual operation room for training of surgical nurses. One of the possibilities for increasing students time on task is by offering them realistic and immersive simulations of a patient contact by the means of Virtual Reality technology. CAVE technolology is one of the options. The major motivation behind choosing this technology is immersion and added visualization possibilities for a better learning experience. For example, when diagnosing and treating a patient with colon cancer, the medical student might be able to dive into and browse the patients intestines in a 3D virtual reality simulation. While anatomical educational visualizations and virtual patient contacts have been described in the literature, the use of VR technologies as a part of traditional medical education is an emerging trend and still under development. This fact motivates further exploration of the topic, in particular exploring advantages and limitations of these technologies (such as CAVE) as medical learning environments, as well as possibilities for practical realization and implementation. This is what I plan to investigate during my visit to UCL. I also plan to follow up the existing research initiatives between NTNU and UCL (2 earlier visionair applications), aligning and combining the ideas in a joint research proposal.

Teams :
Program for Learning with ICT (LIKT) is a cross-disciplinary program, a meeting place between a variety of scientific areas, ranging from ICT to the social sciences, where pedagogic and didactic traditions are of particular relevance. The research focus is currently on mobile and ubiquitous learning, collaborative learning environments and 3D learning environments.

Dates :
starting date : 31 March, 2014
ending date : 13 January, 2015

Facilities descriptions :
http://visionair-browser.g-scop.grenoble-inp.fr/visionair/Browser/Catalogs/REACTOR.UK.html

Recordings & Results :
In this project, I wanted to explore the advantages and limitations of Virtual Reality technologies (such as CAVE) as medical learning environments, as well as possibilities for practical realization and implementation. Another goal of my visit was to follow up the existing research initiatives between NTNU and UCL (2 earlier Visionair applications), aligning and combining the ideas in a joint research proposal.

Conclusions :
- Tested different technology solutions that could allow existing projects from NTNU (in Second Life and vAcademia) work in the UCL CAVE - Tested Virtual Reality/CAVE-based visualizations in relation to other projects (specifically Virtual Afghan village for cultural awareness training and planned projects of Virtual Aquaculture simulator and Area planning in government agencies). - Preliminary ideas resulted in a demo paper Simulating Extreme Environments with Virtual Reality and basis for Horizon proposal - Developed full integration of Aquaculture simulator in fully immersive 3D in the CAVE, resolving initial difficulties with tracking, rendering and navigation




Project Images :

image.Q44WTX.png
image.RM3GTX.png


Other project resources :

UCLvisionairreportEkaterina.pdf
UCLvisionairreport2.pdf


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Project funded by the European Commission under grant agreement 262044