February 2, 2001
UW’s HIT Lab gets international award for medical/virtual reality work
Imagine a world in which the borders between medical practice and virtual reality begin to blur: physicians hone their surgical skills by suturing a virtual wound, feeling the resistance when needle meets skin and the give when it punches through. They practice removing a gall bladder using laparoscopic instruments — and repeat the procedure until they get it just right.
They immerse patients in virtual worlds to treat phobias or provide distraction during painful therapies.
It’s already happening in The University of Washington’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory, which has received an international award for its work using virtual reality for medical applications.
Last weekend, HIT Lab Director Tom Furness and his associates accepted the 7th Satava Award at the annual Medicine Meets Virtual Reality conference in Newport Beach, Calif., an international gathering of medical professionals and virtual reality gurus.
“It was rather unusual because the award is usually presented to an individual, not a group,” said Suzanne Weghorst, assistant director for research at the HIT Lab. “It’s a real compliment to all the talented people we have working at the lab.”
Established in 1989 by the Washington Technology Center, the HIT Lab’s work focuses on developing new varieties of human and machine interfaces. Other projects mentioned in the award citation include a virtual emergency room that allows physicians to design displays of clinical data using virtual reality, a head-worn visual display device to help people with Parkinson’s Disease walk better, and the virtual retinal display, a technology that uses a low-intensity laser light to “paint” images on the retina inside a user’s eye and has implications for people with diminished vision.
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For more information, contact Weghorst at (206) 616-1487 or weghorst@u.washington.edu. For more information about the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality conference and the Satava Award, see www.amainc.com/mmvr_virtual_reality.html
