Medic-ART: Medics Augmented Reality Trainer

Navy corpsmen have helped achieve a remarkable survival rate for the warfighters, civilians, and enemy combatants whom they serve. But this success masks significant challenges. Training corpsmen is costly; it addresses primarily the acquisition of skills (rather than maintenance); it fails to convey the perceptual and cognitive skills to handle complex combat wounds; the design of training technologies leverages technical innovations, not learning science; and these solutions are rarely evaluated for training effectiveness. Aptima, the University of Toledo Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center, and Dr. Sandy Katz of the Learning Research & Development Center will develop the Medics Augmented Reality Trainer: Medic-ART. The solution has three main components: (1) a framework for designing Augmented Reality (AR) training technologies that draw on Activity Theory, an instructional theory that is ideally suited to ill-defined domains such as medicine; (2) web-based software that runs on virtually any computing device, displays 3D anatomical overlays and instructional text, and can be activated over a role player, manikin, or even a chalk outline of a patient; and (3) experimental research to validate and explain the effects of the solution.