Researchers pilot virtual clinic to help train doctors

Researchers pilot virtual clinic to help train doctors

Third year medical students have been diagnosing virtual patients at a respiratory clinic in Second Life this week, as part of a research project on game-based learning.

Friday 6 March 2009
By Lucy Goodchild

Third year medical students have been diagnosing virtual patients at a respiratory clinic in Second Life this week, as part of a research project on game-based learning. The virtual clinic, which is on Imperial College London’s Second Life island, is being piloted to see if it can help students to become good doctors.

Video placeholder 

The Imperial students worked in groups and were given five virtual patients to talk to, examine and diagnose. They were given money for tests like chest x-rays and had to decide which tests to carry out on the patients to reach the right diagnosis.

The students were then asked their opinions about learning in Second Life, to help evaluate the resource.

We talked to Senior Learning Technologist Maria Toro-Troconis, Professor Martyn Partridge and Ashish Hemani about the research, and asked third year medical students Jiexiu Zheng and Unmesh Bandyopadhyay what they thought of their virtual experience.

Press office

Press Office
Communications and Public Affairs

Click to expand or contract

Contact details

Email: press.office@imperial.ac.uk