Name: Douglas Danforth
Email: danforth.2@osu.edu
Department: OB/GYN
Preferred Method of Contact: Faculty email
Previous Mentoring: Yes (funded)
Category of research: Clinical
Research Description: Development of Virtual Patients for Medical Education
This project involves the development of virtual patient simulations for medical education. Virtual Patients (VPs) are avatar representations of human standardized patients from which students can take a medical history. The student-VP interaction occurs in a virtual environment that simulates a real world patient encounter. In order to simulate real patients with greatest fidelity, the virtual patients are controlled by artificial intelligence. This allows medical students to engage in a natural language conversation with the patient to obtain relevant patient history, symptoms, etc., and then to develop appropriate differential diagnoses and treatments for the simulated condition of the patients. Virtual world medical simulations enable students to rehearse professional behaviors in a risk-free environment, providing opportunities for skills practice prior to real-world patient encounters. Moreover, the quality of the interview can be automatically assessed with both formative and summative feedback provided to the students. No specific knowledge of virtual patients, virtual worlds, or artificial intelligence is required.
Specific Areas of Research Emphasis: Medical Education
Name: Courtney Lynch
Email: Courtney.Lynch@osumc.edu
Department: OB/GYN
Preferred Method of Contact: Faculty email (she is also the department contact)
Previous Mentoring: Yes (funded)
Category of research: Clinical
Research Description: We are seeking medical students to get involved with us with various maternal and child health-related projects.
Specific Areas of Research Emphasis: Public Health, Maternal and Child Health