There are some interesting experiments going on with 'Second Life', including medical education and medical simulation. I've not found much evidence of health informatics getting involved, though....

Most readers of this blog should have at least a passing familiarity with the ideas around 'Second Life' (secondlife.com), the 3-D virtual world. At a recent nursing informatics conference I attended in the USA, one of the poster presenters put forward some ideas for discussion, and was encouraging attendees to sign up and explore the possibilities for nursing education.

A couple of blog posts I encountered today suggest that the medical world is starting to explore the possibilities in a big way. Today there will be the 'first medical simulation' in Second Life, and a number of medical centers (sic) are exploring its use, eg http://ammc.wordpress.com/.

I'm sure there are lots of other examples.

Those who know me will know that I have said for a long while that we are not very good, in the health informatics community, at exploring the implications of the latest technologies. So, it will come as no surprise that searching for 'health informatics' or 'medical informatics' in Second Life returns no results. There are quite a few results just for health, medicine, or nursing (although some of the latter look a little dubious).

So, a challenge - anyone interested in exploring the potential?