Become a (virtual) brain surgeon . . .

Learning by doing is often a very good way of learning. A tad of an issue, though, when it comes to medical procedures. Let’s say  . . . surgery. In particular, brain surgery.

Imagine for a moment how a trainee neurological surgeon might learn to insert the deep brain stimulator that I mentioned in the blogpost about Adrian Williams’ work recently.

Medical educators, you’ll be relieved to know, have a wide range of methods both in the real world and in virtual realities to ensure the learner is well-prepared before learning-on-the-job.

An eexcellent example is a Ohio State Medical Center simulation in which trainee surgeons — and you too — can carry out the procedure to place a deep brain stimulation device to treat a patient’s Parkinson’s disease. Virtually, I hasten to add!

Don’t be misled by the cartoon-like style at the start. Here’s what the Mindhack blog says about it: When I first loaded it up and saw the cartoon-like style I thought it would just be a bit of eye-candy but it turns out to be quite a detailed guide to exactly how this sort of surgery is undertaken.