John Moore Wiecha*, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, United States Robin Heyden, Boston U. School of Medicine, Boston, United States Track: Practice Presentation Topic: Web 2.0-based medical education and learning Presentation Type: Oral presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: MaRS Centre, 101 College Street, Toronto, Canada Room: CR3 Date: 2009-09-17 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM Last modified: 2009-08-13

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So called "Web 2.0" technologies hold great potential for medical education. Second Life is the best known of a group of new web-based social networking virtual reality environments. Although these environments are being increasingly explored for use in education, we are aware of almost no use or evaluation of these environments for formal medical education, either at the undergraduate, residency, or post graduate levels. Most applications of these environments in medical education have been limited to patient-centered sites for disease or condition specific education and support, or for supporting larger professional meetings via providing a virtual environment in which to participate in the meeting.

We designed and delivered a post-graduate continuing medical education (CME) program in the virtual world social networking program Second Life. Our objectives of this pilot project were to:

1)Explore the potential of the virtual world social networking web environment Second Life (SL) for CME activities
2)Determine possible instructional design models for using SL for CME
3)Understand the limitations of SL for CME activities.
4)Understand the barriers, solutions, and costs to using SL, including need for training of participants, and presenters.
5)Learn about the types of environments within SL environment that promote learning. 6) Measure user feedback.

We trained and enrolled 16 primary care physicians in an hour-long highly interactive event in Second Life on the topic of Type 2 Diabetes, given by an endocrinologist. Participants completed a pre and post survey, with case-based questions assessing acquisition of learning objectives of the program, and the post survey assessed their attitudes towards the virtual reality learning environment. We also tracked time and costs associated with developing a program of this type, including costs of training participants. Preliminary analysis of our results shows high levels of participant satisfaction, with rates of agreement to the following evaluation statements:

1) “Overall, I found this experience in Second Life to be an effective method of CME”: 100% agreeing, (including 64% “strongly”agreeing).

2) “The Second Life approach to CME was superior to other methods of online CME in which I have participated.”: 100% agreeing (including 55% “strongly” agreeing).

3) “This Second Life CME method is superior to face-to-face methods of CME”: 36% neutral, 9% disagree, 55% agree (including 18% “strongly” agreeing.

4) 100% agreed they would take another CME course in Second Life, including 82% who “strongly” agreed.

Virtual world environments will become a significant component of medical education programs in the future. Little is known about how to use this technology for medical education. This project will provide some useful information to help move this understanding forward. It is likely, however, that until the state of art in both technology, access to high speed internet, and user competence all improve, this method of education will be slowly adopted.