Ann Arbor, Madison teams partner to create virtual training tool for med school students

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 | Source: Concentrate

Patient interaction is about to become both real and virtual thanks to a partnership between the University of Michigan and a Madison-based medical software development firm.

Medical Cyberworlds is working with the University of Michigan and University of Virginia's medical schools and Tigar-Hare Studios of Los Angeles to create "Mastering Professionalism and Teaching Humanistic Communication in Virtual Reality." The technology will allow medical students to practice patient interaction.

"Basically, we are helping to create a virtual reality training tool for medical students," says Debra Power, president of Ann Arbor-based Power Marketing and Research, which is creating the first focus groups for the project. "Students go through training to learn how to break bad news, and this tool will allow them to interact with a virtual patient."

U-M Medical School Prof Michael Fetters is one of the co-founders of Mastering Professionalism and Teaching Humanistic Communication in Virtual Reality, which is being funded with grant money from the National Cancer Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

The focus groups will use students from U-M and the University of Virginia this fall.

Source: Debra Power, president of Power Marketing and Research
Writer: Jon Zemke