Learning medicine through collaboration and action: Collaborative, experiential, networked learning environments

The SUMMIT Lab and William LeRoy Heinrichs, at Stanford University, were honored to be the 2002 awardees of the Satava Award for Virtual Reality in Medicine. Since the award, the group has followed two main threads of research, which we describe below. The first, 'building a high-performance, network-aware, collaborative learning environment has investigated the framework and components needed when students in multiple locations collaborate using computation-intensive simulations and large image datasets. The second thread, online, interactive human physiology for medical education and training', has focused on the application of interactive physiology models embedded in 3D visualizations of virtual patients in naturalistic medical environments. These environments support immersive, experiential learning where students act as medical providers and manage authentic medical events and crises. These research efforts, and our conclusions, are presented in the chapter below. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2008.