Virtual Classroom HIV/AIDS:
A Curriculum for Students in the Health Professions

by Joyce K. Anastasi, PhD, RN, FAAN

The Center is also very excited about our clinical scientist's involvement with Dartmouth Medical School's Interactive Media Laboratory in the development of an interactive multimedia program titled, HIV & AIDS: A Curriculum for Students in the Health Professions. The target audience are students in the health professions, with an emphasis on nursing and medical education. The program covers major aspects of HIV and AIDS from the molecular level to the complex psychosocial. The program seeks to use the highest quality media, including 3-D graphic models. There are interviews with real patients, health care providers and one simulated patient. They are very moving---even riveting. The clients interviewed are from diverse backgrounds, two are married, one is a gay nurse and one is a mother who lost her child to HIV. The simulated patient is a young woman for whom we provide care for over a period of 4-5 years. It's designed to touch the heart as well as to stimulate the intellect. The program is available on laserdisc and CD-ROM. Our eventual goal is to use this program with multimedia servers and broadband networks, anticipating the imminent proliferation of networks capable of conveying interactive multimedia programming.

Virtual Classroom's Content

Taken from the training video

Section 1: Overview and Background

  1. Introduction: The HIV epidemic
    The virus and immune system. Coordination and continuity of health care: the interdisciplinary team
  2. The natural history of HIV disease

Section 2: Health Maintenance

  1. A model for health maintenance: Cofactors for exposure and transmission, risk assessment Counseling and testing History and physical assessment Monitoring health status, health education Treatments to prevent disease progression HIV-associated conditions General principles for managing late HIV disease Diversity, adversity...reality
  2. Controlling infection in the health care setting, universal precautions, managing exposure in the workplace

Available on CD ROM by Appleton & Lange. Co-developed by Dr. J.K. Anastasi & Dr. J. Henderson, director of the Interactive Media Lab at Dartmouth College.