Pharmacy students rarely have the chance to experience a cleanroom environment before starting work. But a ‘virtual cleanroom’ created by Purdue University now gives them a feel for the job.
The limited availability of working pharmacy cleanrooms, where pharmacists would prepare medicinal materials, often makes it difficult for pharmacy students to gain experience in such a facility. In the US, however, Purdue University is now using a flight simulator-style virtual version of a cleanroom to make it easier for students to train in proper cleanroom procedures. The 3-D immersive environment was created from hundreds of digital photos of actual hospital cleanrooms and even includes ambient sound recorded in those facilities.
Cleanrooms are used by pharmacy staff in hospitals and healthcare companies to prepare drugs, intravenous drips, syringes, chemo-therapy treatments etc, especially those administered directly into the bloodstream – a factor that makes the knowledge of proper cleanroom procedures vital. The cost of setting up real cleanrooms for training purposes is largely prohibitive and clearly having large numbers of students visiting actual cleanrooms would compromise a facility’s cleanroom operation, so the virtual cleanroom is a next best option.
The virtual cleanroom, which students began using in the first semester of 2009, resulted from collaboration between Steve Abel, assistant dean for clinical programmes in the Purdue School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Steve Dunlop, managing director of Purdue’s Envision Center for Data Perceptualisation.
The centre uses cutting-edge techniques – virtual environments among them – to explore innovative education and research methods. Abel was aware that pharmacy students tend to get limited training time at the end of their third year, just before they serve a practicum that could land them in a cleanroom. He reasoned that astronauts and pilots train in flight simulators, so why not pharmacy students?
A Purdue Provost’s instructional grant, as well as funding from Purdue’s Pharmacy School, paid development costs. “To our knowledge, this is the only virtual clean-room,” Dunlop says.
The simulator runs in a multiwall immersive environment at the Envision Center and will work on wall-sized panels and portable display systems as well. The equipment employs 3-D glasses and a wireless controller (something like a Nintendo Wii’s) to put users in the middle of the virtual world being projected and allow them to navigate and manipulate it. Head-tracking capability adjusts the view as a user looks around or “walks” through, the environment, which is detailed down to labels on the medicine bottles.
The students can be shown all the required gowning procedures and experience moving around in a sterile hair cover, mask, gown, gloves and booties. “It gave us a first-hand feel of what we can expect,” said Tara Holt, a third-year Purdue pharmacy student from Frankton, Ind. “The detail that was put into this project really helped make it as close to reality as possible.”
The virtual cleanroom is not perfect – and that is by design. The Envision Center team added a can of drink to a refrigerator for medicines, some empty cardboard boxes along a wall, improperly stored syringes, and other cleanroom no-nos. Abel said the idea is to help teach proper procedures by having students identify improper items in the virtual environment.
“It helped us learn the regulations and what not to do in a cleanroom,” said Caryn Davis, a pharmacy student from Indiana. CT
CONTACTS Steve Abel sabel@iupui.edu Steve Dunlop dunlops@purdue.edu Purdue University www.rcac.purdue.edu/news/ www.envision.purdue.edu