Innovation Open House to be held today

“I bet,” one radiation therapy student exclaimed while working with the VERT for the first time, “this is what Superman feels like.”

Now, you can feel it too.

The VERT, short for Virtual Environment Radiotherapy Training system, is just one of a handful of technologies to be featured in a UNMC Innovation Open House today. Attendees can get an up-close look at what these technologies can do, how they work and how they are used at the medical center.

For example, with the VERT, the radiation therapy student could see, as if with 3-D, X-ray vision, internal organs being hit with rays of radiation. She could see the radiation’s effects. It was a powerful lesson on what really happens inside a body during radiation therapy, and of the importance of putting the proper dose in the right place.

Today’s open house will be filled with demonstrations like that.

Academic Affairs, the McGoogan Library of Medicine and the School of Allied Health Professions invite the campus to the library, from 2-4 p.m., to get a closer look at:

• Radiation Therapy Virtual Education Suite, which features the VERT, a 3-D, “fully immersive” simulation system;
• McGoogan Makerspace 3D printer. Watch as plastic filament, fed through a heated nozzle moved by a computer, builds layer upon layer from the base of an item upward. UNMC students, faculty and staff can submit objects for 3-D printing for free through September.
• E-Learning Studio, which includes an audio recording booth, e-learning software, video production equipment and staff who support e-learning by collaborating with faculty and students. Open House attendees will have the opportunity to test online polling software, record audio in the sound booth, evaluate e-learning software and schedule instructional design and e-learning development for summer and fall courses.
• Anatomage virtual dissection table, a state-of-the-art digital simulation tool for teaching anatomy – rather than using cadavers, the table combines hardware and software, taking cases from actual patient cadavers and scans. It can be utilized in either lab or lecture sessions.
• Anderson Ultrasound Scan Lab, which contains ultrasound imaging machines, hospital diagnostic beds, a projector and SmartBoard – and, assorted ultrasound imaging phantoms, specially designed objects that can precisely simulate the internal area of a body being scanned and can be viewed in 2-D or 3-D.