Everyone loves butts, that’s a scientific fact. If you don’t love butts, you’re probably a homophobic creep.
So, it’s with great pleasure I announce that science has brought us the butt simulator to help the further prostate research. Prostate cancer is a big, ugly deal, and I’m pretty sure we’d all like our friends, brothers, fathers to be free of this one on a permanent basis. Dr.Benjamin Lok, a doc working on the project, can be seen here going elbow deep in the name of saving your dad’s ass.
The image shows a medical student practicing a prostate exam on a virtual patient. The virtual patient prostate exam simulation is designed to help students practice and reduce anxiety with intimate exams. In the experience, the student talks to a virtual person and is able to practice their communication skills. The students can conduct a realistic prostate exam on the plastic mannequin. The mannequin is instrumented with force sensors that can measure where the student is examining and with how much pressure. This enables the system to provide a realistic encounter with a virtual patient that includes communication and physical exam components.
Intimate exams (including the clinical breast exam and prostate exam) are extremely high stakes and high impact scenarios for medical students. However, currently there are few tools to enable the practice and acclimation to what are very anxiety generating interactions. Currently, students receive minimal practice and interaction in intimate exams due to the high cost for training and high anxiety nature of the exams.
So our research group has spent the past 4 years exploring whether we can improve medical students preparation and performance in intimate exams using simulations, such as the one seen in the photograph.
[Image and info via Geekosystem]
