Video 8: Virtual Medicine: Pros and Cons

Dr. Nelson (00:00):

Welcome back to virtual doctors. Congratulations on saving the life of your patient. I hope you had a fruitful discussion on ordering labs and imaging and other testing in the emergency department. We’ve come a long way. We’ve taken a patient history. We did a physical examination. We ordered tests and imaging, and then we intervened both emergently and with medication to stabilize and treat our patient.

But let’s talk about how the virtual world differs from the real world. It’s pretty obvious there’s some major differences and there’s some pros and cons to working in the virtual world. Some of the pros are, it’s better than role play or some of the things we did in the past, and it’s good to get some practice before you start taking care of patients. In fact, some medical schools are going very virtual. Some are using virtual anatomy tables instead of cadavers for anatomy lab.

Dr. Nelson (00:55):

There’s also a lot of virtual training that is advancing now with techniques like robotic surgery. Some of the cons are differences from virtual patient care and patient care in the real emergency department, or you lose some of those nonverbal information such as smells or sounds or even nonverbal communication that can really help clue you in to what’s happening to the patient. Much like we talked before, the real world is not a linear process like we looked at today. It’s a very dynamic process.

In fact, I’ll give you an example. I may come and speak to a patient and do part of the physical examiner part of the history-taking, order a couple tests, review those tests, go back, take some more history, maybe do a couple more physical exam techniques, order a couple more tests. In addition, there are other professionals that may be intervening as well.

Dr. Nelson (01:46):

You might have a respiratory therapist coming, giving a breathing treatment of a nebulizer. Then I’ll go reassess the patient after that nebulizer. Or maybe I’ll consult a specialist, like an orthopedic surgeon or a neurologist, and then come back and reformulate a plan. Another thing that’s not really unique to the virtual world but is worth considering is in the real world, patients don’t typically present with textbook symptoms or physical exam signs.

An example of that. Most females that are having cardiac ischemia or impaired blood flow to the heart, what we would call a heart attack, don’t have those typical symptoms of crushing chest pain. They’ll come in with shortness of breath or back pain. It takes many years and a lot of hours of training to become a physician, and this is another great tool to use in your journey to becoming a doctor.

Now, I want you to stop the video and talk amongst the group about how you see virtual patient care advancing your medical education and where you could see advancements of using virtual reality as the forefront of medicine advances.

• How do you see virtual patient care advancing your medical education?
  
  
• In your small group, find a total of four recent—within the past three years—medical advancements that use technology in some way. Try to find some unique ones!
  
  ⚠️When discussing as a chapter, one person from each small group should briefly explain the four advancements.