Main Page

Enter the Virtual Pain Clinic.

Bruce: I moved the 2nd life conference to the conference section inside--Steven Barnes 19:53, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

draft1 Virtual Pain Clinic Project

Douglas College and Simon Fraser University have embarked on a cooperative inter-institutional project to create a Virtual Pain Clinic in Second Life. According to the secondlife.com site, “Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 6,047,217 people from around the globe .... Second Life provides a unique and flexible environment for educators interested in distance learning, computer supported cooperative work, simulation, [

This project brings together faculty from both institutions to create a new educational resource for persons interested in chronic pain and pain management. Current estimates are that approximately one quarter of the adult population either experience or will experience chronic pain. We expect that the Virtual Pain Clinic will be able to provide educational resources that will benefit this population as well as students. The Second Life environment is especially well suited to the new generation of students who are web savvy. We expect the project to have educational benefits e.g. value added over text based materials, didactic teaching modes, potential for assessing learning outcomes and opportunities for cooperative learning. Second Life supports shared learning where small groups can explore and learn together; the Virtual Pain Clinic will be designed to facilitate this engaging style of education. Some parts of the site will be designed specifically for students in nursing and psychology where pain and pain management are a part of the curriculum.

The project team vision of the Virtual Pain Clinic is to build a site in Second Life that includes the following types of educational facilities and resources:

1) A virtual pain clinic waiting room where visitors can meet other visitors and share experiences as well as view vetted pain related video presentations. There will also be text based resources in the virtual waiting room just as there are often reading materials in a physician's waiting room.

2) A virtual classroom, seminar room, and a media room where small and class sized groups could meet for using the Virtual Pain Clinic as an adjunct to a regular face to face or online course.

3) A game/simulation environment where interactive educational "tours" are available along the lines of the movie Fantastic Voyage where the visitors have the virtual experience of being microscopic and traveling inside of a virtual nervous system as it experiences pain signals.

4) Learning resource materials including virtual lectures, image banks, case studies, movies, game/simulation experiences, pain assessment materials, pain journaling, and explanations of non-drug interventions such as meditation, visualization, and distraction techniques.

Clearly this is an ambitious project but we think that it is within the reach of the faculty members and graduate students involved. The proposed plan is to build a good portion of the Second Life site infrastructure this summer so that we have a functional resource that we can demonstrate to be in a position to apply for major funding by the Fall semester.

The Faculty involved in the Virtual Pain Clinic Project include:

Pam Burry, RN, BN, MEd., Faculty, BSN Program, Douglas College Bruce Landon, Ph,D., Faculty, Psychology Department, Douglas College

Stephen (Sen) Campbell, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University Diane Gromala, Ph.D., Professor, School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University Alice Ireland, Ph.D., Executive Director, SAGE for Learning Project, Simon Fraser University. David M. Kaufman, M.Eng., Ed.D., Director, Learning & Instructional Development Centre & Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University Christopher D. Shaw, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University

The graduate and postgraduate students involved in the Virtual Pain Clinic Project include:

Steven J. Barnes, Ph.D., School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University Anthony Gurr, Research Associate, SAGE for Learning Project, Simon Fraser University. Jinsil Seo, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University Meehae Song, M.Eng., School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University

In order to make timely progress on the project it will be necessary to acquire some "land" in Second Life and to build the virtual clinic buildings and facilities as well as construct/program the interactive resources using LindenScript. The proposal request is to bring together bits and pieces of funding to support a talented undergraduate from SFU Surrey SIAT program to actually do the building under supervision of the project team.

http://research.iat.sfu.ca/images/rss.gif