We are in the midst of an Awakening, as Medicine makes the transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. We have realized that most information a health care provider needs can be acquired in electronic form (images, scans, vital signs, the medical record). And with the emergence of teleoperation, we can leverage the power of the advanced information tools of software (AI, 3-D visualization and decision support), hardware (high performance computing) and networking (the information superhighway). All this will enhance the skills of the health care provider beyond mere physical limitations to enable a quality of care previously considered unachievable. Better access will be provided through remote telemedicine. Lower cost will be achieved through flexible manufacturing, just-intime inventory, and best-in-class business management.

Clearly, now is the most exciting time in the history of Medicine, and the researchers and innovators of today are the prophets of the next generation of health care.

Col. Richard M. Satava, MD, FACS

Arlington, Virginia

1991: Late summer in the San Diego Supercomuter Center seminar room: slightly myopic and self-centered, I am in the front row. Kevin Kunzelman, Cris Baray, Art Grapa and I had just completed a great deal of work on a simulator development system and a language called SLANG. I was ready to sit and listen to talks about multi-media systems. Multimedia was ultra-hip on campus among a small group of innovators, who would only later experience “dean-ly” graces of recognition. Helene Hoffman introduced me to the woman seated behind me: Karen Morgan and I talked computers and education, computers and research, computers and entertainment, Arnie Mandell, psychiatry, computers and medicine. “I'm going to organize a conference Medicine Meets Virtual Reality. Do you want to come and talk?” “Yeah, sure”, I said.

1992: That year we invented Cybermouse, and I was going to talk about it at MMVRII in January '94. At MMVRI, I had gone immersive, pretending to give a rectal exam on Channel 8. A virtual one, for sure, using the inside of a pepper in place of a real rectum. A good anchor-person, Mitch Duncan hits me with a sudden question, “What do you think is the future of virtual reality applications in Psychiatry?”. “Well, uh, uh, the field is actually still too young to think about that.” Next time I see Karen, I ask, “What do you think is the future of virtual reality applications in psychiatry?”. “Education, and ... why don' t we do a workshop about VR and Psychiatry?”.

1994: The year of the Web. Hype-r-multi-media on the Internet. At MMVRIII, I am going to talk about CyberMensch, an Internet tool for planning clinical trials. In 1973, I was still feeding punched cards and tapes to gigantic calculators, yet the transition to 1994 and the Web and VR Markup Language was as smooth as my generation going from marihuana to Prozac, from Gauloise to Diet Coke. “Reality Bytes”, the MMVRIII workshop on Psychiatry and Virtual Reality, is about VR power users. Folks like military, arcaders, and auto-eroticists whom you expect to be immersed for 8 hours or more. Besides frying brains, can it treat behavior disorders? When we last talked at the Good Earth in Palo Alto, Ralph Lamson was hopeful. We agreed the next step is to find a scientific basis, ideally expressed in physiologic measures for brain activity under the influence of VR. Before the FDA declares VR a drug.

Thanks for the journey, Karen.

Hans B. Sieburg, PhD

La Jolla, California

Interactive technology is the subject of several different European research and development programs. Basic programs have dealt with robotics, computer vision, simulation, artificial intelligence, image manipulation and storage, data gloves, man-machine interfaces, etc. This has served as the basis for applications in specific areas, such as health care. When added to the results of programs on advanced telecommunication, the outcome is a solid platform for further work which will be supported by the European Union and its member states: multimedia technology and the information superhighway in support of the new Information Society. The Health Telematics Application Programme is one benefitting from this myriad of modern possibilities. When driven by user needs, and taking the legal, standardization, and regulatory aspects into consideration, the Programme will be enhanced by incorporating VR techniques in its next phase, and it will contribute to further development of virtual reality and its integration into health care and other services for patients, the elderly, and persons with disabilities.

Participation and contribution to this conference seems natural for us representatives of the European Union; it makes the conference a truly international event, from which all parties will benefit. Thanks to advances in telecommunications, in January 1996, the fourth Medicine Meets Virtual Reality conference will be held simultaneously in Brussels and San Diego. Welcome to the Information Age!

Rudy Mattheus, MSc

Jens P. Christensen, MSc MBA

Brussels, Belgium