Abstract
PurposeTraditional undergraduate radiographer training mixes academic lectures and clinical practice. Our goal is to bridge the current disconnection between theory and practice in a safe environment, avoiding the risk of radiation for both practitioners and patients. To this end, this research proposes a new software to teach diagnostic radiography using real-time interactive X-ray simulation and patient positioning.MethodsThe proposed medical simulator is composed of three main modules. A fast and accurate character animation technique is in charge of simulating the patient positioning phase and adapts their internal anatomy accordingly. gVirtualXRay is an open-source X-ray simulation library and generates the corresponding radiographs in real time. Finally, the courseware allows going through all the diagnostic radiology steps from the patient positioning and the machine configuration to the final image enhancing.ResultsA face and content validation study has been conducted; 18 radiology professionals were recruited to evaluate our software using a questionnaire. The results show that our tool is realistic in many ways (72% of the participants agreed that the simulations are visually realistic), useful (67%) and suitable (78%) for teaching X-ray radiography.ConclusionsThe proposed tool allows simulating the most relevant steps of the projectional radiography procedure. The virtual patient posing system and X-ray simulation module execute at interactive rates. These features enable the lectures to show their students the results of good and bad practices in a classroom environment, avoiding radiation risk.
Highlights
IntroductionProjectional radiography is a very common medical imaging tool that supports clinicians in the diagnosis of certain diseases, infections, injuries, to locate foreign objects, etc
The first one is responsible for generating the X-ray image in real time, while Virtual Patient Positioning System (VPPS) transforms the anatomy of a virtual patient to the desired position
A Virtual reality (VR) teaching and learning environment for diagnostic radiography was presented. It relies on i) an interactive character animation method for the patient positioning and deformation of internal tissues, and ii) a real-time X-ray simulation library
Summary
Projectional radiography is a very common medical imaging tool that supports clinicians in the diagnosis of certain diseases, infections, injuries, to locate foreign objects, etc. It can be used on almost every part of the patient’s body, each specific body location requires a given patient position and X-ray machine set up, in particular, collimation of the X-ray source, voltage of the X-ray tube, time of exposure, distance source to patient, and distance source to detector or film. Undergraduate radiographer training within the UK is a mix of academic theory and clinical practice This approach leads to a disconnect between the theory seen in the classroom setting and the practice seen in the X-ray room.
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