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Presence Examples From
the 3D Graphics/Virtual Reality section of the About.com web site Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Monday, January 12, 2003 I decided to attend the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference for the first time last week and I am glad I did. There are amazing things happening on the cutting edge of medical virtual reality. Computer graphics are being used in many different ways. There were several projects aimed at creating a completely detailed model of the human male and female body. There were training simulators for microsurgery and 3D interactive worlds to help emergency medical personal to handle unusual situations like terrorist attacks. There were even emergency medical robots and surgical simulation dummies whose flesh looks and feels real to practicing surgeons (And it really bleeds!). For more information, take a look. Part 2: Military Medical VR As I mentioned in my earlier article on Military VR the military is a strong presence in medical VR because of the need to quickly train medics and other military medical personal. The US Army Medical Research & Material Command's Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center was one of the co-sponsors of this event (along with the University of California, Irvine College of Medicine) and a lot of military funding supported many of the academic and commercial projects presented. Among the military sponsored projects are several from the National Biocomputation Center. Some of the most interesting projects at the Biocomputation Center include the iAnatomy Project and virtual reality Training in Microsurgery. IAnatomy is an interactive, international, Internet that includes interactive models for teaching surgeons anatomy of every piece of the human body and every surgical skill ever developed. Virtual Reality for Training in Microsurgery is interesting. Microsurgery is usually computer assisted (to minimize hand movements in tiny areas) so VR training makes a great deal of sense. Be sure to take a look at the great Quicktime movies of microsurgery the microsurgery page. Part 3: Battlefield Medical Robots An interesting presentation on Battlefield Medical Robots from iRobot and Harvard University took a look creating heavy- duty medical robots to help frontline medics tend to wounded even in the heat of battle. The reduction in causalities could be enormous and the protection afforded medics could insure better availability of medical care. Part 4: VR Hardware The VR Hardware companies were out in force with a lot of different instruments. There were VR laparoscopic tools from Surgical-Science. Barco had several different stereoscopic viewing tools and Fakespace was showing the PARIS Desk. Fifth Dimension Technologies also had a wide variety of VR tools and technologies available. Most of the hardware was similar to products I had seen before. For more information, take a look at my linkbox. Part 5: The Visible Human Project A very interesting series of presentations was given on The Visible Human Project. It is an outgrowth of the National Laboratory of Medicine's (NLM) 1986 long-range Plan. It is the creation of complete, anatomically detailed, three- dimensional representations of the normal male and female human bodies. In 1998 NLM decided that a higher resolution model of the human anatomy was needed, along with more powerful tools and it needed to be available on the Web. The Functional Atlas of the Head and Neck is on the Web now (The 3D models are found in the course itself, labeled 'structures"). Part 6: Emergency Simulations RTI also was showing some interesting stuff including a 3D online environment for training Critical Care Nurses and VirtualEMS. VirtualEMS is an interactive, patient simulator which offers realistic practice to pre-hospital providers. The virtual reality simulator presents a scenario comprising a 3D scene, an incident that produces trauma or medical conditions, and one or more patients. The caregiver can navigate and survey the scene, interact and converse with the virtual patient, use medical devices, administer medications, monitor diagnostic data, and perform interventions. Part 7: Surgical Simulation Dummies The most interesting tool was the surgical simulation dummies I found in the Exhibit Hall. Simulab's TRAUMAMAN Surgical Trainer is [a] very realistic feeling reusable simulated human torso that had replaceable artificial tissue so every user had new 'flesh' to cut into and the flesh even 'bleeds' for a lifelike experience. It was fun to watch the doctors gathered around trying it out. They were all quite amazed. It is the only human patient simulator used by the American College of Surgeons and was a real hit in the exhibit hall. The future of Medical VR is wide open and it would be wise to keep a close eye on these companies in the future.
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