Medical Schools - Taking classroom instruction to the next level

The Virtual Patient Interactive Trainer (VPIT) for medical schools provides a dynamic visual learning experience for first and second-year medical school students. A common complaint of medical school students is that early stage training lacks an effective presentation of “what conditions actually look like in the real world.” All too often, text-based material is used to describe critical diagnostic cues without enough visual examples to drive the point home.

The VPIT for medical schools addresses that problem! First, it provides a dynamic virtual patient that presents visual cues you’d see in real-life, such as realistic changes in breathing, changes in skin pallor, facial expressions, sweat and more. It augments didactic text with real-world assessment situations. Second, the VPIT was built with the understanding that simulation training is often conducted in small groups of 4-5 students. Instructors frequently ask one student to play the role of caregiver while others in the group may play other roles on the medical team or simply wait for their turn in the “hot seat.” The VPIT allows all members of the group to see the patient changes in real-time through their own mixed reality viewing device (a Microsoft Hololens), so all members of the groups stay engaged and immersed throughout each scenario. Finally, the VPIT is designed to present both internal and external views of the patient, allowing the student to make important connections between anatomy and physiology.

Equipment

We will work with you to custom design an equipment configuration that meets your specific needs. We purchase the devices on your behalf with zero markup and install the software on each device prior to delivery. A Typical configuration would be to purchase one (1) instructor tablet and five (5) Microsoft Hololens mixed reality viewing devices. The teaching tablet can control up to 6 mixed reality viewers at one time, so we can meet your training needs.

Stand-alone or Not?

The VPIT provides additional realism to existing manikins or part-task trainers using a fiducial marker anchoring system to place the virtual patient. It can also be in full stand-alone mode with no physical simulation paraphernalia required.