FEATURE
CAN VIRTUAL SHADOWING WITH SMART GLASSES REPLACE THE IN-PERSON SHADOWING EXPERIENCE ?
AUTHORS Briana Coleman and Lekha Devara
The onset of COVID-19 and its mandates have brought upon a plethora of unforeseen changes to medical education . One of the biggest changes has been the lack of shadowing and preceptorship opportunities for didactic students . Oftentimes , these experiences are the primary way didactic students determine their career and medical school goals , i . e ., what specialty they would like to pursue and what range of board scores they may need to obtain . Furthermore , being in the hospital setting is often the best way to bridge the divide between didactic material and what it means to be a physician in the real world . An unanticipated but much appreciated solution to this problem has been the use of smart glasses .
During this past summer , University of Louisville School of Medicine ( ULSOM ) students had the opportunity to experience the brilliance of smart glasses first-hand through a virtual shadowing opportunity in the Emergency Department . With the help of Dr . Jeff Baker , rising second-year students were able to be in the ED without actually being there . A resident would wear the Vuzix M400 glasses and engage with patients as they normally did , with the added step of informing their patients that , if they gave consent , medical students would be seeing and hearing their interaction over Zoom , by way of a camera on the glasses . Dr . Baker would also monitor the Zoom session and provide clarifying details on the medicine behind the patients ’ presentations .
The result was an interface that allowed medical students to see procedures , and interpersonal doctor-patient interactions , at an unprecedented level . Individual sutures that were previously impossible to see as a medical student standing behind a resident , were now clear and magnified on a computer screen . Techniques of the physician that are often missed during in-person shadowing , due to students attempting to stay out of the way , were now obvious and easy to observe . We both attended these sessions and were inspired by the ingenuity of the platform . We eagerly asked : how could we apply this model to other departments in the hospital so students can shadow in any specialty they want during the pandemic ?
In order to bring this idea into fruition , we came up with different branches of the project that needed to be addressed . The three main categories of this endeavor were : communication , infrastructure and technology .
Since there is an intersection of multiple different fields and areas of expertise in this project , communication has been extremely important and naturally , extremely difficult . Most players that have been involved are very busy and coordinating multiple
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