Medical school can be painfully boring at times. Especially anatomy. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've woken up with slobber all over my anatomy picture book trying to memorize the details of every nerve and vessel. What a nightmare. I can also remember someone shaking me vigorously in the middle of class because I was snoring so loudly the lecturer had stopped speaking. I've always wondered if there is a cure for studying-induced coma besides the ever-popular drug Adderall. I recently chatted with two graduating University Medical students, Ramin Javan and Bryan Jeun, and they talked to me about a project they developed to make studying medicine a little more exciting. If you love video games as much as I do, you'll soon understand.
The anatomy of the head and neck is spatially one of the most complicated areas in the body to visualize. Imagine trying to memorize every name and pathway of multiple crisscrossing wires in a computer without actually seeing the inside. It is difficult to recreate the complexity within the head by studying two-dimensional images. The software programmed by these medical students greatly facilitates the understanding of these difficult spatial relationships. Dubbed a "serious gaming project," the viewpoint of the player is similar to the popular video game Halo.
The game begins outside of a gigantic skull, and a mouse and keyboard allow you to move around the structure. After you've finished admiring the skull, you can enter through the mouth. From here you can open multiple doors to travel into various anatomic spaces like the eyes, ears and nose. You can also follow the pathways of the nerves and blood vessels to see to which rooms they lead. When clicking on a particular spot or figure, the player can see a pop-up that gives information about the nerve, vessel or area. By walking around and seeing how each structure connects to another, one learns the information with a greater degree of memory retention.
This game is not restricted to anatomy, however; another application involves shooting bad guys -- but in this case the bad guys are bacteria. This gaming experience is designed to test the player's knowledge of medicine. Different types of bacteria (for example, staph versus strep) require different drugs (penicillin versus cephalosporin). So when a baddie approaches, you need to figure out which drug to use and the amount to give based on which germ you are facing. Guns represent the medicine, and ammunition represents dosage. If you choose the right drug, the bacterium is punished with a round of fire. Choose the wrong drug or dosage and watch yourself be gobbled up by bacteria in graphic detail.
To my knowledge, this technology has not been reported in any academic journal. Although the game has not yet been entirely completed, the creators expect to finish within a year. They are currently in the process of presenting what has been completed at medical conferences and hope to expand the game into all aspects of medicine, including surgery. Some studies have shown that physicians who played at least three hours of video games in a week performed laparoscopic surgeries quicker and with fewer errors than other physicians (and based on this data I would have made an excellent surgeon). Laparoscopy involves a video camera attached to a long, flexible tube that is inserted through a cut in your tummy. The image is projected onto a video screen, and the physician can move the scope using an outside device resembling a Wii controller. Having handled one of these instruments in the past, I can tell you that my X-Box training came in handy.
It makes sense to create a video game that could be used to simulate these surgeries. Resident physicians would be able to increase their technical skill before attempting an operation for the first time, older physicians could hone their surgical skills, and I suspect this would also translate into better outcomes for patients. I find this technology to be a very exciting way to learn. If I had played this game half as much as I played Halo, I probably would have been the smartest student alive -- or at least not failed as many exams.
Ashok is a University Medical student. He can be reached at atholpady@cavalierdaily.com.
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