Medical education, training and care delivery in a virtual world provides a one-stop shop for educators, universities and researchers looking to employ virtual worlds for delivering medical education, training and for clinical purposes. The book provides theoretical basis and practical resources for virtual-environment-driven medical education and healthcare. It discusses virtual worlds and their basic characteristics, compares virtual social environments with conventional face-to-face interaction, provides guidance for setting up a virtual world, and discusses issues including the capabilities and suitability of commercial virtual worlds for medical education and healthcare applications, related research efforts, and ethical and financial considerations.

Provides information that will enable medical educators who have limited or no programming experience to use commercially available platforms such as SecondLife and ActiveWorlds to deliver training and curriculum

Provides healthcare providers with the basics of how to leverage this technology to provide care to patients and employ virtual worlds to maximize continuity of care and provide doctors with relevant data

Information on how to conduct meetings using virtual worlds is provided