MEDICAL SCHOOL Virtual Clinic

THE DOCTOR AT AN HIV CLINIC opens the patients file and glances at the lab reports. He ponders how to tell her she has AIDS. He tries one approach. Then he tries another. Remarkably, the patient lets him try until he gets it right.

That's because this patient exists on a computer screen. Welcome to the HIV Virtual Clinic, a simulation developed by Dartmouth's Interactive Media Lab that allows medical students to train in reallife scenarios without the devastating consequences their inexperience can cause. In addition to the HIV clinic, the media lab's eight simulations include a cancer clinic and a military trauma unit.

Media lab director Dr. Joseph Henderson describes these complex medical simulations as "meshing content and technology." But does the virtual system work? "I've never seen a better educational tool in my life," testifies cyberentrepreneur Dr.C.Everett Koop '37.

The simulations teach the finer points of doctor-patient interactions.The HIV clinic starts with a patient named Laurie confiding that she might have contracted HIV after engaging in unprotected sex. As the student takes her medical history, several versions of each question appear on the screen. When the student poses nonjudgmental questions, Laurie answers openly. If the student asks questions that incorporate blunt descriptions, Laurie clams up.

Such interactive nuances, according to Henderson, remind students that every patient is a person. But the lesson doesn't stop there. After each virtual patient encounter, a video of a real doctor, John G. Bartlett, the head of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins, offers guidance.