2023-12-23 18:00:00
The National University of Río Negro will receive financing from the national government to create health situation simulators, using virtual and augmented reality technologies. The technology will be used to train medical students at the National University of Río Negro and health professionals.
“We have laboratories designed as a space for generating interactive virtual reality and augmented reality content and now we are exploring artificial intelligence projects,” summarized Marcos Del Bello, Undersecretary of Media at the National University of Río Negro and director of the project.
The simulator project came to the Medicine degree to generate communication skills linked to how to generate or transmit a diagnosis or simply how to interact with a patient.
The user puts on a virtual reality helmet that reproduces a realistic image of either an on-call room, an office or a street (in an emergency situation), the sounds and the atmosphere.
Del Bello described it as a “immersive experience«. «In a simulated physical space, an avatar appears, a fictional character that represents the patient who asks certain questions, and will react according to what the student generates. It’s a back and forth as if you were talking to a real person“, specific.
He said that teachers will be able to see on a screen how that student interacts, where he or she is doing well, poorly, and where he or she will need to improve.
He stressed that Clinical simulations are necessary in teaching. «The student has to try to live real situations. A virtual reality system allows 20 students to analyze between 20 and 30 different pathologies. “You can choose the situation you want the student to experience,” Del Bello described.
How to tell a patient that he or she has a serious illness? How to act when faced with certain symptoms? What should the student ask to identify what a patient has and what actions to take? The situations are multiple.
The project included a survey among health professionals to find out what aspects they needed to practice on. The topic of delivering unexpected news, communications in an emergency, or leadership issues came up.
«Simulators, through virtual reality, allow you to practice these skills because they recreate real situations of professional practice. Through artificial intelligence, responses can be predicted. The system trains you«explained Germán Guaresti, director of the UNRN Medicine degree.
Del Bello assured that the system also allows costs to be reduced. Until now, to carry out a clinical simulation experience, a physical space and an actor to simulate a certain situation were required. A virtual reality headset costs $150. «It is a social development. Today when reading a book, there is 30% left; An immersive experience of this type tends to have an impact in the order of 60, 70%, according to some studies,” he pointed out.
He considered that “by using virtual reality systems, you multiply the possibilities and the student receives more personalized training.”
«This might be extended to other types of simulations, such as births or surgeries. Today for anatomy studies you need a small morgue in universities. With a virtual reality system you can do it virtually,” said Del Bello.
Guaresti assured that a London university was one of the first to develop similar technology. «There are generic packages. “This is designed with local characteristics of the region,” she said.
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