The Journal of Medical Internet Research has published a study on the outcomes of a a pilot postgraduate medical education program at the Boston University School of Medicine presence in Second Life.
You can read the full paper here, but the synopsis of the study is:
1. Fourteen physicians participated in the pilot, with twelve providing feedback.
2. The learning exercise was related to Type 2 diabetes, with participants surveyed on any change in confidence and performance, as well as attitudes toward the virtual learning environment itself.
3. Confidence increased after the Second Life event, in respect to selecting insulin for patients with type 2 diabetes, initiating insulin and adjusting insulin dosing.
4. There was an increase to 90% (from 60%) of participants initiating correct insulin dosages.
5. The percentage of participants who provided correct initiation of mealtime insulin increased from 40% to 80%.
6. All twelve participants surveyed agreed that their experience in Second Life was an effective method of medical education.
7. All twelve also agreed that “the virtual world approach to CME was superior to other methods of online CME, that they would enroll in another such event in SL, and that they would recommend that their colleagues participate in an SL CME course.”
8. Two of the twelve disagreed with the statement that Second Life provided a superior to face-to-face option for continuing medical education.
The take-home message? Nothing new really: virtual environments can be very useful for education. The small sample size is obviously worth noting. Additionally, I remain amazed at the positive feedback garnered for education sessions held in Second Life given the rudimentary aspects of the platform itself i.e. the need to type responses in chat and viewing what’s essentially a Powerpoint presentation (as shown in the picture above). That’s not to take away from the work the University of Boston have done, it’s just one key aspect for future studies: how much of the positive feedback on virtual environments is the ‘wow’ factor experienced by newer users versus the well-established data on immersion and its benefits?
Another key point for me was this:
Our search of English language peer-reviewed publication databases did not identify any formal evaluation of the educational effectiveness of health professional training in SL or other virtual worlds.
Studies like this one are helping to address that gap, but there’s plenty more to be done. What’s fairly certain is that work is underway and within 12-18 months there’s likely to be a significant body of work pointing out the opportunities and challenges virtual worlds present for health-related training and education.
Coming from a nursing background myself, I’m always fascinated by the work going on in virtual environments in regards to nurse education. To some extent it’s a natural fit in that clinical simulation is a pivotal part of the education process for nurses anyway – using virtual environments is simply an extension of recognised practice.
Kali: Constructivism and social constructivism are the key learning theories in my work. By linking history and heart and lung sounds to other parts of a clinical scenario, I am building on the students previous knowledge to create new knowledge. People in simulations tend to act the same as they do in real life. The ability to capture the text allows for reflection on the decision-making of this particular group.
Over the past few days a product announcement and some interesting research have come together for me in illustrating some of the downsides of heavy regular use of virtual environments. I’m talking specifically about the physical impacts here: we’ve covered the psychological positives and negatives repeatedly (e.g. 
I read everything I could get my hands on at the time to do with online relationships, virtual societies and even gaming communities that were developing international reputations and new cultures in cyberspace. I asked myself at the time ‘could this be the start of a new movement in human enrichment?’ and set forth to find out the good and the bad (and the down-right terrible) aspects of spending a lot of time engrossed in an online world, be it chat, gaming, shopping, finance, politics etc. Thus, my interests turned toward career aspirations to develop psychological research and an applied track record in the use of information communication technology and the use of other technologies in helping the ‘human condition’.
However, it is psychologically damaging both in psychosocial relationships, employment responsibility and accountability and can even affect our general health to a large degree. You might therefore say that although substance abuse and gambling are faster and
