Embodied Agents for Obstetric Simulation Training

Post-partum hemorrhaging is a medical emergency that occurs during childbirth and, in extreme cases, can be life-threatening. It is the number one cause of maternal mortality worldwide. High-quality training of medical staff can contribute to early diagnosis and work towards preventing escalation towards more serious cases. Healthcare education uses manikin-based simulators to train obstetricians for various childbirth scenarios before training on real patients. However, these medical simulators lack certain key features portraying important symptoms and are incapable of communicating with the trainees. The authors present a digital embodiment agent that can improve the current state of the art by providing a specification of the requirements as well as an extensive design and development approach. This digital embodiment allows educators to respond and role-play as the patient in real time and can easily be integrated with existing training procedures. This research was performed in collaboration with medical experts, making a new contribution to medical training by bringing digital humans and the representation of affective interfaces to the field of healthcare.