Second Life Provides First Steps For Many KUMC Students

Jul 16, 2008

When teaching space got tight for the Nurse Anesthesia Education Program at the University of Kansas Medical Center, they decided to move to an island. To entice students to use the new space, the Med Center built a number of student pavilions, beach-front houses, glass-floored classrooms that sit over the ocean and a fully equipped teaching hospital. Luckily, jet lag isn’t a factor when students are shuttled back and forth to the island; to access the tropical setting, they need only connect to the internet.

Using the web-based virtual world of Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual environment that allows its users to interact with one another in an ever-expanding world, the Nurse Anesthesia Education program has added a novel component to its curriculum.  Now, in addition to the resources available to students at the medical center, they also have the opportunity to practice anesthesia procedures wherever they have internet access. 

With the use of an avatar, a computerized representation of oneself, subscribers can gain access to the Second Life world (also known as the grid) and explore thousands of realms, socialize with other Second Life users and participate in individual and group activities.  Even though users aren’t able to gain tactile experiences, the practical application of using Second Life is that the techniques and procedures learned in the simulated environment translate to the real world.

“This is an introduction to general anesthesia,” explained Donna Nyght, CRNA, MS, chair of the Nurse Anesthesia Education Department at the University of Kansas Medical Center.  “By using the Second Life portal, our students are able to avoid many of the stressors that would accompany a clinical setting and focus on the procedures at hand.”

Of course, using Second Life isn’t as simple as opening a web browser.  Before anyone can take part in an online course, they must learn how to fly and teleport – crucial components of navigating through the Second Life experience.  Additionally, nothing exists in Second Life until someone builds it. When server space is purchased from Linden Labs, the company responsible for Second Life, it arrives looking like an empty island. 

Stephanie Gerald, a member of the Teaching and Learning Technologies Department at the KU Medical Center, has spent a great deal of time importing images and developing the many buildings on the island.  Though it can be a time consuming process, her efforts seem to be paying dividends.

“Each of our schools, allied health, nursing and medicine, have all found an educational application on the island,” said Gerald. “Once the faculty realized all the educational possibilities, it really took off.”

In 2007, three years after the KU Medical Center started its foray into Second Life, it purchased its own region and began to build multiple structures to assist students.  Today, the KUMC Isle hosts a community center for the creation of medical databases, multiple houses for use by the physical and occupational therapy departments, a simulation center for the diagnosis of heart tones and a hospital with multiple clinical settings. 

“Our IT department has designed an operating room in Second Life that looks extremely similar to what you would find in just about every hospital,” said Nyght. “It’s realistic enough that we expect other departments on campus will want to use it, even if only as a way to familiarize their students with a clinical environment.”

A visitor to the KUMC Isle’s operating room would find that few details have been spared.  While not every aspect of a real-life hospital setting has made the transition, students will find more than enough information to advance their understanding of the procedures that are required in the O.R.

“To our knowledge, this is the first simulated operating room in Second Life,” explained Shelley Barenklau, CRNA, MS, a clinical instructor in the KUMC Nurse Anesthesia Program.  “We tried to copy one from somewhere else, but ultimately we had to build our own.”

Though Second Life has been used as a teaching tool by other academic institutions, the hospital represents an innovative approach to information that is usually obtained in lectures or books.

 “This is an introduction to general anesthesia, so we don’t have to make things extremely detailed or difficult,” Barenklau noted. “Because it’s configured for nurse anesthesia students that are just beginning to understand the required anesthesia techniques, we shoot small in terms of complicated scenarios.”

Originally designed as a medium for interaction, Second Life has become an assessment tool for health care professionals.   Based upon a student’s performance in the virtual world, instructors can determine whether or not they’re ready for the “real thing.”  After students complete online tutorials, their performance is used as an evaluation tool.

“We want to see that they understand the induction sequence for general anesthesia,” said Nyght. “Do they push drugs before they’ve oxygenated the patient?  Did they remember to take their blood pressure?  Our end goal is patient safety and that hopefully, before we send our students into the operating room, we can be certain of their proficiency.”

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