UC Irvine has a habit of throwing technology at their doctors-to-be. A few years ago, when the rush towards digitized medical records began, it was iPads. The school gave each of its medical students iPads as part of their white coat ceremony (and still do). Now, it's Google Glass.
UC Irvine will be making Google Glass an official part of its four-year medical program. During the first two years, students will use the face-mounted computers to help study anatomy and clinical skills. In the last two years, they will use the computers during their hospital rounds.
But now, even though every medical student will be trained with them, not every student will be receiving one. The school will acquire 20 to 30 pairs. They're scheduled to be used starting August.
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“Medical education has always been very visual and very demonstrative, and Glass has enormous potential to positively impact the way we can educate physicians in real time,” said Warren F. Wiechmann, Associate Dean at UCI's Instructional Technologies School of Medicine. “Indeed, all of medicine is based on 'seeing,' not 'reading,' the patient.”
UCI's already used the computers in some trials and have found that they do indeed help in a hospital setting. With Glass, doctors don't have to manually dig through files, search their computers, or look up facts; all they have to do instead is move their heads a little strangely, and honestly, I've seen weirder in a doctor's office.
Not to mention that plenty of the uses of Glass are pretty interesting. UC Irvine plans to have teaching doctors wear Glass during labs so their students can get a first-person view of what they're learning.
And hey, with that chunk of change the medical students are spending on school, well, let's just have them have their Glass.
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