Acting in a Robotic Environment Requires New Skills for Physicians

Abstract

In context of the Corona pandemic, telemedicine acquired a new significance. Whereas previously the aim was to override given barriers, now, in the case of a pandemic, the main idea is to create an intentional distance between patients and healthcare professionals in order to avoid cross-infection. To meet the needs of a fully diagnostic examination, a robotic based system was designed. However, collaborative robotic systems bear new risks, that have to be dealt with. To prepare future physicians for telediagnostics, we developed a training curriculum for the telemedical examinations. It is based upon multiple stages including a skill trainer, healthy volunteers, supervised examinations of real patients and an exam. In a first proof of concept, we demonstrated the existence of a learning curve and significant better performance after the passed curriculum compared to an untrained collective.

Keywords

• telemedicine
• examination
• robotics
• training
• telediagnostics