International Virtual Association of Surgeons (iVAS) Conference in Second Life
No travel arrangements, no hotel, no last minute flight hassles, no cost, no jet lag--in no time I'm at an international conference with surgeons and experts in virtual patients, telerobotics, and using eye tracking to separate the novice from expert surgeons. Speakers included Professor LeRoy Heinrichs of Stanford University (SUMMIT); Mario Nicolaou of St. George's Hospital, UK; Mitch Lum and Hawkeye King of the University of Washington BioRobotics Laboratory. The sessions were very interesting, the venue unique. There were a few technical glitches, which did not detract too much from the flow of the conference. It was relatively short, however, I would expect future conferences will be more robust, as folks become more comfortable with this venue.
The conference was hosted by iVAS
"...a group of surgeons and scientists who want to change the way scientific communications are currently conducted, we will organise conferences entirely within the virtual world. This lowers the cost of attending, negates the need to travel and creates novel surgical research networks across the world."
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