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In the news: Nursing schools use ’Second Life’ simulation scenarios for training

Stressed Out Nurses Weekly, July 27, 2009

Second Life, a 3-D virtual world in which participants create avatars (visual depictions of your character on screen), interact in realistic spaces, and often talk live to each other through voice or instant message, is becoming a popular tool for nursing and medical schools to help train students for real-world scenarios, reports Discover magazine.

In the UK, Imperial College London has a simulated OR and a virtual respiratory ward. San Jose State University in California offers Heart Murmur Sim, in which students can listen to real cardiac sounds to identify heart murmurs, and a simulation in which a woman who has recently given birth suffers postpartum hemorrhage is offered at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In these types of programs, participants order medications, use medical equipment, and patients—either programmed, actual actors, or experts with a script—react to participants' actions and speech.

In many of these cases, participants wear headsets and use a display board with different options to click, such as giving medication. Though computer simulation and physical simulation centers have existed for years, the fact that online Second Life simulation offers live interaction and is significantly cheaper than physical simulation centers is making the tool increasingly popular in nursing and medical schools.

This kind of simulation also brings experts and students together more easily.

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