Interactive Respiratory Physiology started off as a Macintosh C++ application with real time animations, movies, and full-color illustrations. It is currently being converted into a Web-based program. The program is comprised of four main sections.
The current modules focus on breathing mechanics, static conditions, and obstructive and restrictive disease states.
Tutorials are linear presentations of concepts with questions interspersed. Illustrations and animations are used to reinforce the ideas. For example, the Quiet Breathing Tutorial builds up a triple animation, linking a breathing thorax, a gauge of pressure changes, and a graph of volume changes.
Labs are interactive work areas that encourage students to compare and contrast scenarios, adjust model parameters, and see results. The Disease States Lab encourages students to compare spirogram tracings, compliance curves, and expiratory flow rates for normal, obstructive, and restrictive pulmonary diseases. Students may use a question bank to focus their exploration. The Statics Lab enables students to specify a patient's lung volume and glottis state. The resulting lung and chest-wall recoil pressures are depicted using illustrations, graphs and equations.
The Quiz module contains questions covering all topics within the respiratory physiology course. Each multiple choice question provides remediation for correct and incorrect answers. The non-scored quiz format encourages students to seek answers by using the integrated on-line support.
Support information includes a hypertext-accessed dictionary and encyclopedia. The dictionary gives brief definitions of concepts and symbols. The encyclopedia uses illustrations, animations and video to go into greater depth in a topic area. It is divided into four categories: Anatomy, Physics, Pulmonary Function Tests, and Disease Process.
Interactive Respiratory Physiology is currently being used as an integral part of the curriculum at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. We plan to construct additional modules and to author more on-line support information in the future.
Comments about this program should be directed to:
The Office of Academic Computing (OAC)
600 North Wolfe Street, Blalock, 404
Baltimore, MD 21287-4461
(410) 614-0843
oac@jhmi.edu.
Credits:
Wilmot C. Ball Jr. M.D. - Content Expertise
Joan Freedman, M.S. - Designer/HTML Programmer
Rachel McCormick (class of'96) - Writer
Martin Wachter, M.E.S. - C++ Programmer
Harold Lehmann,M.D.,Ph.D. - Director
Bonnie Cosner - Administrative Support
Ilana Fortgang - Pulmonary function tests
Tarik Walker - Pulmonary function tests
Lisa Makarchuk, M.A. - Illustration
Caitlin Hughes, M.A. - Illustration
Daphne Orlando, M.A. - Illustration
Fred Askin MD. - Pathology images
Renee Dintzis Ph.D. - Histological images
Bronwyn Jones M.D. - Chest floroscopes
Lynette Mark M.D. - Bronchoscopic
video Bernard Marsh M.D. - Bronchoscopic video
David Shade - Pulmonary function tests
C. Carl Jaffee M.D. - Pneumothorax image
(Yale Center for Advanced Instructional Media)