Virtual worlds for healthcare information

The Fall meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) featured a panel on virtual worlds as a healthcare information platform, which was held in world in the conference center on the Center for Connected Health island. I couldn't attend even virtually because I was on holiday, but it looks like an interesting program, and although not cancer-related it is yet more confirmation of the potential that people see for delivering health information and education via virtual platforms such as SL. See:

http://daneelariantho.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/a-virtual-world-as-a-healthcare-information-platform/

And here is Namro Orman's photographic record of the session:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=178927&id=80079725553#/album.php?aid=178927&id=80079725553

"Meet the professors" in Second Life

Gabriel Hortobagyi, Chairman of the Department of Breast Medical Oncology at the M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, TX and Pier Franco Conte, Director of the Department of Oncology and Haematology at the University of Modena, Italy, are the joint directors of the Advanced Course on Breast Cancer being held this week in Modena. As DrHortobagyi Bravin and PierfrancoConte Blinker they came in world and answered questions put to them by avatar physicians, the press, and other interested people at an open Q&A session at the Virtual Cancer Institute.

Professors Hortobagyi and Conte answering questions over a live video stream put to them by physicians and others attending the conference at the Virtual Cancer Institute.

The professors, who answered questions live from Modena, were enthusiastic about the potential of holding conferences in Second Life and for people to 'attend' from different countries without having to travel. Italian physicians are able to get Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits for attending the course in Modena. Although virtual attendance does not, yet, qualify for CME credits, they foresee that this is a real possibility in the future once the practical issues are overcome.

M Linden addresses the inworld conference

Later, M Linden (Mark Kingsdon , CEO of Linden Labs) addressed the conference. He spoke enthusiastically about the important work this group is doing and about the increasing use that is being made of Second Life by health care providers and educators.

This was a good example of how virtual medical conferences can work. I've attended many real life medical conferences in my previous role as a scientific and medical publisher and the experience was very similar, except that this time, I could type my questions in the 'chat' box from the comfort of sitting at my own computer, or take a discreet break and refresh my coffee when I felt like it. And of course it saves on travel and accommodation! The one drawback is that you can't meet your colleagues face to face during the breaks, but you can always IM the other delegates and make new contacts that way.

The conference still has two days to run. For more information and a link to the detailed program, see my earlier blog piece: http://poppyzabelin.blogspot.com/2008/11/virtual-breast-cancer-conference-in.html

Virtual breast cancer conference in Italy

In an exciting development, the Policlinic of the University of Modena is hosting a real life three-day "Meet the Professor" advanced course on breast cancer which is also being streamed into Second Life.

SL residents can follow the conference in real time at the Virtual Cancer Institute on the ISN Visions sim today, Thursday and Friday from Midnight to 10.30 am SLT.

The Virtual Cancer Institute in Second Life

I sat in on some of the first sessions and was impressed to find that the program features some heavyweight names, including experts from the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Professor Luca Gianni

Professor Luca Gianni (Head of the Medical Oncology A Division of the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy) was one of the speakers. He spoke live from Modena about gene profiling of breast cancer to a mixed live and virtual audience.

Most of the program is targeted in the first place at physicians (oncologists, radiologists and surgeons) but there is a Q&A session today at 9 am SLT (18.00 local Italian time) that should be of interest to other health professionals and to anyone whose life has been touched by cancer. ISN Visions has also announced that M Linden - Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab - will be joining the guests later today, at 10.30 am SLT (19.30 local Italian time). It is being held at the Virtual Cancer Institute (Teleport:http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISN%20VISIONS/194/106/34).

Hyoozan Hax, the Virtual Activities Manager in SL for ISN, told me that this is the second virtual cancer conference that the island has hosted, but this is the first time that it has been held in English.

The full program can be downloaded at:

http://isnvirtualworlds.com/VirtualCancerInstitute/download/program.pdf