High-Tech, Interactive: UA College of Medicine Labs Go Virtual

Forty years ago, John Palmer, MD, PhD, was a young assistant professor who would teach pharmacology to the first University of Arizona medical students in the brand-new Basic Sciences Building. Now a professor emeritus at the College, Dr. Palmer still teaches in some of those same labs. But they have undergone quite a transformation.

Arriving in Tucson in 1966 from the University of Colorado, Dr. Palmer worked with College of Medicine Founding Dean Merlin K. ("Monte") DuVal, MD, Philip H. Krutzsch, PhD, and Oscar A. Thorup, MD, to help get the UA College of Medicine off the ground. The building they planned would house the basic science departments – anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology, pharmacy and physiology – and would accommodate the teaching needs of each, as well as an interdisciplinary course in neuroscience.

With the design for the Basic Sciences Building, they agreed to implement a comparatively novel approach to medical education: The multidisciplinary approach, in use at only a few medical colleges at the time, allowed for teaching any of the basic sciences in any of the laboratories. "In those days," Dr. Palmer recalls, "a huge amount of teaching time was spent in the labs. We decided to make a single facilitythe same space and equipment – dedicated solely to teaching. Research would be conducted in other areas."

Dr. Palmer was charged with implementing the plan for the eight multidiscipline labs (MDLs) in the new building, four on the second floor and four on the third.

The labs served as the students' home base. Each one accommodated 16 medical students, four at each of four stations. At each station was a table for lab work and a sink, and each housed one microscope for the four students. At the front of each lab were a projection screen and a chalkboard.

A television studio established on the second floor (now the site of a conference room) enabled faculty to show videotapes in any of the labs. An experiment or procedure also could be taped as it was performed in a lab and shown in real time on the television monitors in the labs or nearby lecture halls.

By the late 1980s, biochemistry, pharmacology and physiology no longer required the use of the MDLs; two of the second-floor labs were converted to computer rooms and, subsequently, to the medical student lounge. The others were modified to accommodate 24 desks each.

Today, two wet labs remain on the second floor. The third-floor MDLs, renovated last year, are a tribute to the wonders of technology. Known as "Virtual Labs," they may represent, as one faculty member describes them, "the coolest space of its kind in the country."

Cosmetically, the colorful, inviting labs have come a long way from the neutral, wood, slate and steel tones that marked their predecessors. Technically, they are light years ahead. Instead of taking turns studying slides through a microscope, today's medical students view digital images on large plasma screens and work on laptop computers via wireless Internet connections.

In the new labs, Dr. Palmer facilitates team learning exercises within the Cardiovascular, Pulmonary and Renal System block of the new curriculum, ArizonaMed. "The first thing you notice," he says, "is there's a bigger crowd!"

Ten screens, or monitors, one for each student station, ring the room, their displays orchestrated by a faculty member at a central console. Six students can be seated at each station. From the instructor's station, monitors can be controlled individually to compare and contrast different images. Instructors can work with individual groups, as well as project the image one group is studying to all 10 screens. Student groups also can work independently, each controlling their own monitor.

The new capabilities provide tremendous flexibility for teaching and for independent study. Instructors work with preloaded digital images but can supplement their sessions with digital images from their own laptop computers. In addition to microscope slides, they can show 3-D CAT scans or MRI images and videos and DVDs in the labs. Students can access images from outside the labs using the Internet, or they can check out mini-hard drives with digital images loaded onto them.

T. Philip Malan, MD, PhD, vice dean for academic affairs at the College, explains that the new labs enable students to work with a high-tech solution that mirrors working with a microscope. "We're applying to education the same state-of-the art technology that physicians use clinically," he says, noting that physicians who worked with microscopes and X-ray films in the past rely increasingly on new technologies.

Like the original MDLs, the Virtual Labs are multidisciplinary. The ability to access a virtually limitless variety of images and even procedures from outside the labs assures that practically any subject can be taught in these spaces. High-tech and interactive, the Virtual Labs are a fitting complement to the ArizonaMed medical student curriculum, enhancing teaching and learning opportunities through creative and flexible approaches to medical student education.