I had read this article in Psychology Today about a new form of training for therapists; it uses a computer generated patients, each possessing signs/symptoms of a given psychological condition, to help therapists develop skills of diagnosing and treating actual patients. My opinion of using this type of training program is that in conjunction with traditional methods of training, it could prove to enhance the education of not only aspiring therapists, but also as a method of continuing education for practicing therapists--but I certainly do not think it should be used to replace actual clinical experience.
Given our recent lectures pertaining to doctor-patient relationships/communication, I'm curious to know what the rest of you think of this.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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5 comments:
This article was very interesting since it sheds some light onto the future. What does communication constitute? Does it have to be between just living organisms? These are some of the questions that popped up in my mind while I read this article. I think what ever it takes to produce more compassionate, genuine, caring doctors is a good step to take. It is very important for the future of healthcare to revolve around the patient and not just the doctors, healthcare providers, etc. Technology is blooming in the 21st century and it will continue to progress towards the future. Therefore, why not embrace it to improve our quality of lives as well as how health care is delivered not only in mass population but to the individual.
I agree with what Tashi said. I think it's great that technology has advanced to this, and any way of improving doctor/patient relationships should be worth looking into. However, because this is such a new technique being used, I am curious to see some data on its effectiveness. For example, it would be helpful to see if patients thought treatment was better after the doctor had done a series of training sessions with the virtual patient. Although I think this way of training doctors could be helpful, I doubt it would be equivalent to talking to a human patient. First of all, knowing you are talking to a virtual patient is likely to make the doctor much more relaxed about the situation, which wouldn't always be the case with an actual patient. As I said before, I think it's great that scientists are developing new ways to improve the relationships between patients and doctors, but I'd like to see more data on the effectiveness of a virtual patient.
This article was very interesting and I think it displays a perfect example of the difficulties involved in science communication. The field of therapy, especially, should be one where all communication is possible, and if this program is going to help out those therapists who are either new to the job or a little intimidated by it, I say go for it. I do agree with Sonja however that more measures need to be taken to observe the full effects of this technique. I think it would be a good idea to do a few experiments and see how successful the program turns out to be before fully implementing it. I do think it sounds like a great idea as long as therapists don't start relying on it for every case. In order to be a successful therapist, I would imagine that one should be empathetic by nature to being with, and that the "virtual patient" will just be a helpful tool along the way.
I also agree with Tashi and Sonja. If this system can improve the quality of patient-doctor relationships, it should be used and investigated more seriously. Granted not every teen seeking therapy is the same, but this method simply allows therapists to practice communicating, especially with those they tend to share little common ground. Moreover, this system of using virtual patients may help with the initial introductions and conversations that determine the remainder of the interaction. If a doctor can get past the first few grueling seconds or minutes with relative ease, the patient is much more likely to share more and communicate more effectively. Initially I thought the use of virtual patients was a little disturbing and further removed emotion and human interaction from our daily lives, but it seems like it actually can improve these very personal, intimate, and also challenging encounters.
I think it's interesting they're planning on using this technique to train Army members in interrogational skills. I think this application of the technology would be most valuable-- in terms of training a great number of people when actual human subjects are at a loss. (It's also not like anybody's going to be getting a degree out of experience with virtual patients). That being said, I do think I support the program being a part of the training process for psychologists and psychiatrists, I don't know how comfortable I'd be with having them rely on it-- this brings up issues of individuality among patients and age-old debates about technology replacing humanity. I think the most effective use for this tool in the training setting would be for prospective therapists to examine their own reactions to the virtual patients and use it for self-improvement.
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