College of Nursing and Health Sciences to Receive Funds for Development of Electronic Medical Training Simulator
 
Federal Funding for Virtual Medical Training Lab Rises to $9.85 Million
 
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi will receive $2.35 million in federal funds in the next fiscal year to continue developing an electronic medical training simulator for military health-care personnel.
           
Pulse!! The Virtual Clinical Learning Lab has been developed since March 2005 by Dr. Claudia L. Johnston, associate vice president for special projects at A&M-Corpus Christi.
           
U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi (27th Congressional District), strongly endorsed the project and has helped obtain almost $10 million in grants through the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Va. Ortiz is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, which authorizes defense spending.
           
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi President Flavius Killebrew welcomed continuing federal support for Pulse!!
           
“This is a major initiative at the university that we hope will deliver long-term benefits for the military, from troops on the ground to the men and women who treat their battlefield injuries,” Killebrew said. “We also look forward to this project’s positive impact on medical education, which will benefit future generations of students entering medical fields.”
           
The Pulse!! project has brought together teams of top-notch medical experts and electronic game developers to produce a high-fidelity, persistent, immersive learning platform that will provide high-quality, case-based training for medical personnel similar in kind to flight-simulator training for military pilots.
           
The project’s private-sector partners include BreakAway Ltd. of Hunt Valley, Md., a leader in modeling and simulation software used for developing computer games, innovative military and government training applications and highly advanced data visualization tools; and Digitalmill of Portland, Maine, a software development firm specializing in “serious games.”  An international team of Pulse!! medical advisers includes experts in military medicine and medical education assessment.
           
The need for such medical training technology is driven by rapid changes in the treatment of wounds caused by new military weapons systems. The Pulse!! learning platform will enable military doctors to introduce new scenarios for treating unanticipated injuries spawned by continually evolving battlefield conditions.
           
In the long run, Pulse!! technology also may address a looming crisis in medical education and current trends showing inevitable shortages of nurses and physicians in coming decades.