From: san@well.sf.ca.us (Sandra Kay Helsel)
Subject: CONF: Report on "Medicine Meets Virtual Reality," June 92
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 92 11:37:07 -0700


 
I'm sending some comments on the recent "Medicine Meets Virtual
Reality" Conference in San Diego.  For the most part, the
illustrations, metaphors, terminology were directly out of the medical
field.  (In terms of illustrations, that meant my squeamish self had
to leave the room when eye surgery was being depicted via HDTV
quality).
 
This is brief, I will cover individual speakers and topics in
detail in the next VIRTUAL REALITY REPORT.  But here's an overview...
 
Conference organizers announced that there were 200 paid attendees
--75% of whom were physicians.  It seemed that almost every attendee
had an M.D. or Ph.D. after their name.  Additionally, there were 50
attendees who were either press or presenters.  Significantly,
Business Week's reporter was on-hand two days of the conference.
 
In my interview with Richard Satava, M.D. FACS (conference advisor and
Telepresence Surgery System developer), he stressed that this
conference will be considered a "pivotal moment" in medical history
for these reasons: 1) It is the first time that technology has been a
focus of a medical conference; patients usually are the focus of a
medical gathering.  2) It is one of the rare times that a
interdisciplinary group of physicans has come together.  Apparently,
medical gatherings are typically specialized, i.e., gynecologists
don't attend the same meetings as surgeons.  Satava went on to say
that a goal of the conference was to give physicians a realistic sense
of VR development, "We don't want them to have unrealistic
expectations about the technology.  It's too easy to see virtual
reality on CNN and think it will be available tomorrow."  Further,
Satava urged the business community to get involved in medicine and
VR.  He said, "we need middlemen, entrepreneurs, and venture
capitalists. . "
 
The actual title of the conference was "Medicine Meets Virtual
Reality: Discovering Applications for 3-D Multimedia Interactive
Technology in the Health Sciences."  The only complaints I heard were
from those who did not notice the second component of the title; one
attendee told me "this is a technology conference, not virtual
reality."  I think some attendees expected the entire event to be
devoted to "classic" VPL-style virtual reality with headsets and
datagloves.  Instead, the event was quite, quite broad in its
coverage--ranging from 3-D imaging, to robotics, supercomputing, etc.
The problem that I saw was that several presenters did not tell the
audience where their particular technologies did (or did not) fit into
VR.  Overall, the ambience was quite upbeat and attendees seemed
genuinely excited about using technology to improve their patient
care.
 
Comments of interest from several of the presenters:
 
Jaron Lanier, "My definition of virtual reality is that is is a media
that closely matches what the human-body nervous system expects from
the environment."  Jaron estimated that there are "1,000 VR systems in
the world."
 
Joe Rosen: "The goal is not to create reality, the goal is to create a
tool that deals with reality."  Rosen was questioned from the audience
about what is needed to bring VR to medicine.  He answered, "We need
corporate sponsorship, there seems to be a lack of corporate vision in
1992 to get all this together."
 
In my mind, the very best presentation was given by Dave Warner, a
medical neuroscientist at Loma Linda University school of Medicine:
The pitfalls of planning for VR in medicine: 1) the underestimation of
the complexity of the product; 2) the underestimation of the
complexity of the market; 3) the underestimation of the seriousness of
the necessary commitment.  Warner said "It's going to take more than
garage nerds and isolated physicans to make VR a success medical
technology."  Warner predicted that psychiatry will be the medical
field most impacted by VR.
 
Fuchs of UNC: "The virtual worlds systems evolution must move on four
fronts :1) faster (real time rates); 2) prettier (look better and more
faithful to reality); 3) handier (interfaces more natural, i.e., walk
around instead of fly) and 4) 'realer'."  Fuchs reminded the audience
that technological hyperbole does not always materialize, he cited the
1939 World Fair's prediction of "a helicopter in every garage."  Fuchs
demonstrated video from the UNC project in which the ultrasound image
of a fetus is superimposed on the mother's belly- -allowing live data
from inside the patient to be analyzed by the attending physician
wearing a headset.
 
Cassette tapes are available of each presentation for $9.00.  A
proceedings book was given to attendees, I do not know if remaining
copies are for sale.  Conference Organizer was Aliged Management
Associates in San Diego (619-541-1444).

Sandra Kay Helsel
Editor
VIRTUAL REALITY REPORT 

san@well.sf.ca.us