May 5, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, we are joined by Drs. Rani Vasireddy and Dhanya Gorty to talk about virtual escape rooms in neurology education, live from the AAN Annual Meeting 2025. Through interactive puzzles and clinical problem-solving, players solve challenges in a progressive sequence to ultimately "save" the virtual patient.
Their innovative approach addresses the engagement gap for today's learners while providing immediate feedback that traditional teaching methods lack. Educators interested in developing similar tools can use platforms like Genially, Scratch, or even Google Forms.
Find Dr. Vasireddy and Dr. Gorty on Twitter/X!
Higher Listenings: Joy for EducatorsA new podcast from Top Hat delivering ideas, relief, and joy to the future of teaching.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Michael Kentris (00:04):
Hello and welcome back to the
Neurotransmitters.
I'm your host, dr MichaelKentris, and with me I have two
educators to talk aboutsomething from which there is no
escape, or is there, and thatis escape rooms.
So I have Dr Rani Vasireddy andDr Dhanya Gorty.
Please go ahead, introduceyourselves, tell us a little bit
(00:25):
about your background and kindof open up the subject for us
today.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (00:30):
Thank you.
Thank you, mike.
I'm Rani and I'm one of thecurrent Movement Disorders
Fellow and also an instructor atUniversity of Kentucky, and I
have completed my medicaltraining from India and I have
also completed residency fromUniversity of Kentucky.
I also have a master's inhealthcare administration and,
interestingly, I have adifferent background that took
(00:52):
me up here, which is myhealthcare IT experience, which
gives me an edge in coding andyou know which I can make use of
in various things I do day today, maybe developing EHRs or
sometimes games like this.
So, although I'm a clinicalperson, research person, I do
multiple things in my work.
I think the real passion iseducation and I always try to
(01:15):
improve it in different ways,and I'm a fun-filled person who
likes games and challenges.
That's where I got this idea ofEscape Room, so I used my
coding skills to use and that'show we came up with this idea.
Dr. Michael Kentris (01:28):
I had no idea you had all these other
skills, so I'm looking forwardto diving into those.
Dr. Dhanya Gorty (01:32):
I'm Dhanya Gorty.
I'm an international medicalgraduate from India and I'm an
incoming resident at theUniversity of Kentucky Neurology
Residency Program and a menteeof Dr Vasireddy.
Dr. Michael Kentris (01:43):
Excellent, Excellent.
Well, thank you both for comingand joining us and talking
about your project.
So we, those of us in thissmall recording booth, we are
recording this live at the AANsemi-live and we have this
upcoming event in the educationroom.
So let's start off with, forthose who may not be as familiar
, what is an escape room?
(02:05):
And, as a follow-up to that,what does it have to do with
medical education?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vas (02:10):
Excellent question.
So escape room is, if you do itphysically, it's really a big
room and a room full of cluesand puzzles that you have to
solve through one by one to goto next stage and finally reach
your destination, which is yourfinal objective.
In a real-world escape room,say you're doing a horror escape
(02:31):
room or a crime detectiveescape room your goal is to save
someone from that crime or, youknow, get someone out of that
horror house.
Similarly, in our escape room,we're going to teach you a base
storyline or a learningobjective that we're going to
approach in the form of clinicalquestions and clues and
particularly, like you said,what it has to do with neurology
(02:52):
and education.
We're going to teach them amain storyline and theme based
on one learning objective butincorporating different kinds of
puzzles and clues that they'dsolve through and pass along and
go to next stage and ultimatelythey'll save the patient.
Dr. Michael Kentris (03:08):
I mean, there are a lot of parallels
there to how we practiceclinical medicine, in terms of
kind of going in a step-by-stepfashion, exactly Excellent.
So what inspired you to createa neurology-themed escape room,
and how does that work?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (03:24):
Yeah .
So when me personally, I'veheard of escape rooms before but
I'd never played until I was inresidency.
So one of my colleagues, drBajorski, who has high energy
like me, we both are a good team.
We always go to escape roomsfor our wellness events, thanks
to our program director, drGuduru, who sponsored those to
us.
So anytime we need a wellnessevent, our go-to is Escape Room.
(03:47):
I think we have done at leastfive.
I think we have broke all thefive.
So we are a great team.
So that's the very firstintroduction to Escape Rooms for
me.
So we always wondered, like whycan't this be something
educational?
Why should it always be math,arithmetic, clues, maps?
So that's where my first ideaof we could make this
(04:07):
educational by just puttingeducational puzzles, maybe an
x-ray, maybe a CT, maybesomething like that.
That's where the idea came.
But you know you need physicalroom.
Where do I get physical roomfor that?
I can't.
So then I thought about how canI use my skills, my coding
(04:28):
skills, my idea about using AIand whatnot, and that's how we
started developing this virtualescape room.
And how is it going to work?
I think Dania is a good one totell you about it.
Dr. Michael Kentris (04:35):
Yeah, please.
Dr. Dhanya Gorty (04:36):
So I was always in the hunt for tools
that make learning neurology fun, and that's how I got into
escape rooms in the first place.
I feel that's a perfect blendof education and entertainment,
which I like to call edutainment.
So basically, we have multipleneurology puzzles.
(04:56):
We, as neurologists, lovesolving puzzles in general, so
in the escape room as well, weare.
We're going to have multiplepuzzles, one um leading into
another, all in the backgroundof a case or whatever the
learning objective is um isthere of that particular escape
(05:17):
room.
So that is what is the maintheme of our escape room today.
Dr. Michael Kentris (05:21):
So I'm curious.
You know so, growing up, likemany neurologists, I, I too, am
a nerd and I would play a lot ofthose old computer games like
the point and click, mysteriesand things like that, which you
know do have a lot of commonelements.
You know you need to find theitem to unlock the door, to move
to the next room and so on andso forth.
Does your coding backgroundlike have you been coding any
(05:43):
software or do you have plans inthe future to create something?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vas (05:47):
currently I didn't use the full like sql
coding or anything in thebackground, but I've done enough
research to see which.
Should I look into githubs orwhere can I get escape room
platforms and what, and that'swhere we came up with a cost
efficient platform where I canlaunch my game.
So the biggest part is actuallynot launching and hosting,
because that was actually easierthan what I thought.
(06:09):
The biggest part I think I hadto do a lot of research on is
building a theme that isengaging, end-to-end for the
learner, so they don't losetrack and we're not deviating
from the learning objective.
So what really happens?
Let me go into the minutestdetails here.
So I'm teaching a med student.
You know a simple thing likehey, how do you do a lumbar
(06:34):
puncture?
Say, to do a lumbar puncture,they need to clean the skin.
Next, you know, you go aheadand you drape the person and
then you go ahead and get yourtools in place, localize the
area where you want to go, whichlevel l3, l4, l4, l5 then find
the right spot.
See, it's a linear, one-stepprocess, similarly based on the
complexity.
But you wouldn't teach that toa resident that way or a fellow
(06:56):
that way.
You go further, higher.
Like you know more complexthings.
So, similarly, our puzzles arelinear puzzles, where you give
them one challenge at a time oryou'll do what we call as meta
puzzles, where a group ofpuzzles come together and branch
out to form a final objective.
So to create that meta puzzlesusing a platform with coding is
(07:18):
actually tough, because you haveto write a decision tree and
they have to think all the waysthat learner can think about
like yes, no, and it could beyes or no, and if they did a
mistake, how do you take themback.
So this testing processactually takes longer than you
think, and that's actually whatwe did and we'll teach you more
(07:39):
in our workshop tomorrow if youwant to learn your own I wish I
could make it.
Dr. Michael Kentr (07:43):
Unfortunately my airplane flight will not
allow.
This kind of makes me think ofuh, I don't know if you ever
read any of the choose your ownadventure books from.
You know they're really popularin the 80s and 90s um the
decision tree in particular,because a lot of times it would
be you make the wrong decisionand you die.
So that that's one way to solvethat problem.
But I imagine you're maybe alittle more lenient in your
(08:05):
design.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasi (08:06):
Actually , that's a good point.
First, I wanted them to get thenegative outcome, but it will
really affect their morale andthat is a big thing we both
talked about a lot when we werebuilding.
This is what, if I kill thepatient, will I have the
learning zeal to learn more,continue the game or do it next
time?
So I changed it a little bitand we made sure we are telling
(08:32):
them what they did wrong atevery step, which is what
teaching means.
So we are reiterating them,giving them feedback.
Live in the game.
Okay, you did this, but this iswhat happened to the patient,
so try something else.
So, we're going to send them theproper direction, so there is
no losing in our game.
You will save the patient, butyou might take more time, and
(08:53):
time is the key here.
But you should escape in time,I gotcha, so your model will not
be affected, but you should doit in time.
Dr. Michael Kentris (09:00):
So you've got a ticking clock.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasi (09:01):
Scenario here we have a ticking clock.
Dr. Michael Kentris (09:03):
Very nice, yeah, got to put the heat on a
little bit, so I thought theidea of this meta puzzle is
interesting to me.
Obviously, one of thechallenges making a game in
itself not too challenging, butmaking a game that is
educational, and educationalacross multiple levels of
training that's the realchallenging part.
So did you have to decide,first of all, who your target
(09:26):
audience was, and once you did,how did you refine things from
there?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (09:31):
Yes , that's a very good question.
Actually, that's where westarted our thought process
Should we do it to medicalstudent level or should we cater
it to resident level?
And then we decided to actuallytest it on various people who
will not be playing gametomorrow, and we catered the
session in a way that we cateredthe game in a way that I think
(09:52):
most of the trainees frommedical student level can
actually crack it, but they willneed multiple iterations
probably, which is a learningright.
So what I did was, when I wasbuilding it, we followed the
Kern's six steps of curriculum.
We wanted that to be base of itand on top of it we use what we
call as Bloom's taxonomy.
(10:13):
Bloom's taxonomy actually givesus verbs and things that will
define the learning objectives.
So our learning objective fortomorrow's game at least the
first one that we are going toshowcase is to teach them how to
really run a case scenario.
I'm going to give you a sneakpeek, because you're not going
to publish this tomorrow.
Dr. Michael Kentris (10:34):
Or will.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (10:35):
I.
We're going to teach them howto solve a stroke lead, but you
should know all thedifferentials before you touch
the patient.
So we're going to teach themthe differential diagnosis
aspect of stroke lead and how tobe successful.
So that's the main theme, andthey will be solving various
different kinds of pathology,crossword radiology, as well as
(10:59):
some neuroinfectious whatnotmultiple things on their way to
get to the final answer and savethe patient.
So that's how it's going to berun for tomorrow.
That's our main theme fortomorrow.
But we're coming to Bloom'sTaxonomy.
I'll tell you briefly about it.
It relies on mainly seven steps, but the first step that we
(11:21):
want them to do is remember andrecall the knowledge that they
have learned in their medicalschool and use it in the puzzles
.
Once they recall and remember,next thing is to understand the
puzzle itself and utilize theirskills to solve it.
And third one is application ofthese skills in moving on to
the next stage, which is like itcould be a real-world
(11:43):
simulation of a patient that weuse, like in SimLab.
Similarly, we have a patientsitting there, so they're going
to actually do some things,including physical examination
findings, so which is likeyou're really solving a case.
And last one is the big one isanalysis.
That's where the differentialdiagnosis comes.
Excellent.
So these are the main foursteps.
(12:04):
We do have two more steps whichwe are not going to utilize
tomorrow, which is evaluate atthe end, which is more of a you
debriefing, which we will do noton the stage, and then, lastly,
create.
So we are encouraging them tocreate games like this.
That's the highest step ofBloomstacks on me, which I don't
think we're going to address inour workshop tomorrow, but
we're going to give them thematerial how they could build
(12:25):
their own games.
Dr. Michael Kentris (12:26):
I'm glad you brought up Sim Lab
experience, because it's likealmost as if you're gamifying
what we might see in a Sim Labexperience in some training
programs.
How would you say that thisexperience differs from, say,
like you know, a Sim Lab strokealert experience?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasi (12:42):
Actually in the real world Sim Lab, for
example, we run it as a PGY-2sfor our PGY-1s during
orientation.
There is a mannequin, but themannequin was not doing anything
.
I'm holding a sheet of paperand I was giving them history.
Like, oh, we have a 56-year-oldcoming with right side weakness
, blah, blah, blah, and thestudent is just answering what
(13:03):
he's going to do next.
I don't know what we were doingwith that mannequin there.
Dr. Michael Kentris (13:07):
So we were actually standing there doing
that I have seen some videos ofthese mannequins.
Have you seen these with thepupils that change Like, oh, I'm
having a herniation.
Yeah, it's like, oh, I don'tfeel so good.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (13:17):
So, yes, and the next thing
actually we tried to do, it isactually use one of our
residents as a sim patient.
Yeah, and they would fake theiryou know, mouth drooping and
whatnot.
You know they couldn't lifttheir leg.
You know they couldn't lifttheir leg.
You know.
That makes sense.
Similarly, tomorrow we don'thave a real mannequin sitting
there, but if they click on theinteractive elements, they will
(13:38):
get exact exam of each part.
Nice, so it's very interactive.
So this is more that they asopposed to you giving them the
history they have to seek it out.
Dr. Michael Kentris (13:48):
They have to seek it out like you're
dealing with a patient,excellent.
Now, this is something elsethat people outside of medical
education may not be as familiarwith, and you mentioned the
Kern's criteria, or hierarchy.
I should say Do you want togive us a quick, brief rundown
on that?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (14:02):
Yeah , kern's six-step is very
similar to Bloom's taxonomy thatI just talked about.
Dr. Michael Kentris (14:07):
But yes, I can give you a quick rundownown
yeah, it's kind of like how wewould evaluate, say, the
effectiveness of ourintervention, right, because?
We have like these livefeedback all these beautiful
ideas and you know we put allthis work into our different
learning interventions and thisis kind of like how do we assess
if they're effective or not?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (14:26):
sure .
So in our game, what we'redoing is first, we identified
the problem.
Which is the biggest problem Ithink Dania identified and we
had a lot of discussion about itis how people are not engaging
in the current scenario,especially the Zen Z's who are
used to which I'm going to talkabout tomorrow.
Dr. Michael Kentris (14:44):
So the kids these days.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (14:46):
So my analogy I'm going to use,
which I'm going to use heretoday, is I learned math through
you.
Remember there was Abacus withbeads?
Dr. Dhanya Gorty (14:53):
Oh, yeah, yeah .
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (14:54):
And my son learns his math from
Reflex, math and Prodigy, whichare online gaming platforms.
Okay, so see how different hethinks than me.
So he comes up to med school,for example, tomorrow.
I'm making this up, I don'tthink he'll be a doctor, but say
he comes up to become a doctortomorrow.
Can you ask him to pick up abook and read about stroke?
I?
Dr. Michael Kentris (15:14):
don't think so.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (15:15):
So they expect something
interactive and lively and funway to learn things At the same
time.
That's the first problem.
One is engagement.
Second problem that weidentified was feedback.
So when I wrote my exams maybemy 10th grade, high school
whatnot feedback I got was myreport card A plus or A,
(15:37):
something like that.
And when did I get it?
Maybe a few weeks or a month ortwo, and my father would look
at okay, good job.
But I never knew what I didwrong on my exams.
Right, I always got like what Idid right, but in this way of
format.
Currently, my son does what wecall reflex math, so it really
highlights his fluent areas andnon-fluent areas.
(15:57):
So I can see he can't do ninemultiplied by eight.
Why?
So he's weak in that ninth, youknow element of the table or
whatever.
So I need to work with him onthat.
You know nine multiplied byeight.
I ask him to practice more.
And even the AI gives him moreof the same number again and
again and again.
Reinforcing Similarly our gamewill also create that feedback
system Tells you wrong.
(16:19):
No, this is not the answer.
Do this, do this.
So we are reinforcing the rightanswer in a fun way, and that's
, I think those are two mainproblems we have identified.
And in terms of targeted needsassessment, which is a second
step of Kern's you knowcurriculum, I didn't do a proper
survey sitting there withstudents, definitely like we
would properly do for a Kern sixstep.
(16:39):
But I think I have reached outto enough people who are Zenjis,
like Dania herself, and I haveenough PGY1s and med students
who reached out to us, you knowvarious levels, when we were
teaching, including one of ourown PGY3s who actually did a
needs assessment for strokes inblack.
Oh, excellent, for a differentreason for not this.
And he found out that peoplewere not happy when we did you
(17:01):
know mannequins sitting thereand we were giving out of them.
So he rather wanted interactiveand of course we didn't have
escape room there to do so.
He used real people, realresidents, made it interactive.
So definitely people arelooking for that interactive
element and rather they want tocreate memories than
memorization of the subject,right.
So it's experiential experience, experiential learning, rather
(17:25):
than just sitting and rotting inmemorization, right?
I think that was a small studythat we did as a QA project.
Dr Prabhu who did it, from UK,is one of the things that I can
use.
And the third one is goals andobjectives.
As I said, we use Bloom'staxonomy to create our learning
objectives and we have usededucational strategy, which is
(17:47):
gamification.
And then, lastly, isimplementation, which I'm doing
tomorrow and we'll see how itworks.
As I said, I tested in variouslevels Tested it on a PGY-4,
senior resident, tested it withmed student, tested it on
completely non-medical, justquality tester.
He's an IT person.
(18:08):
All he does is checks.
Every click sees how we areproceeding.
So, yes, I used my cousin to doit and, yeah, I tested it at
various levels.
So, we did implement on adifferent level, not in a stage,
which we are going to dotomorrow.
Lastly, we'll seek feedbackfrom the players who did it
(18:28):
before and after, and that willbe a good evaluation for us if
we are doing the right thing.
Dr. Michael Kentris (18:33):
So should we expect this to become a
regular event at the AAN in thefuture?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (18:38):
Oh, if we are lucky, if we have
good turnout, maybe and I willbe very glad and honored if that
would happen or maybe we'lltake it to a bigger level, maybe
something like head talks or ahub where we have bigger
audience.
Again, this is education based,but definitely neurology
education is a good ground tostart and I think it is.
It caters the needs ofeducators and I'm happy we are
(19:00):
actually launching it inneurology education room.
So many educators will inspirefrom this and maybe build better
games than me.
Dr. Michael Kentris (19:08):
It sounds like it would be very
challenging to do, but I thinkyou bring up a good point in as
much as we are seeing more ofthis gamification kind of uh
spreading throughout the amevery year.
You know, the last couple ofyears we've seen the shark code
breakers from zach london, alichristie and various other
things like on the head talkstage with the uh like double
(19:29):
dare, jeopardy style games aswell, and these are all very
popular events, and so I thinkthere's really a little bit of a
zeitgeist, as you were kind ofhinting at, with the
up-and-coming generation, if youwill, wanting these more
engaging things.
I think we've all sat throughthe long, monotone lecture that
(19:50):
seems like it is only intendedto put you to sleep, and I think
people don't really seek thatout at this point because there
are starting to be these otheroptions.
So thank you for contributingthat to the general atmosphere
here.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (20:06):
Thank you.
Thank you, mike.
I think we should move and weshould change ourselves on how
we are teaching, because backwhen I was a kid, I used
textbooks to read.
Then I moved on to iPads.
Now I use interactive learningenvironments like YouTube myself
.
I'm not even a Gen Z, I'm amillennial.
And then now I even use ChatGPTto teach me.
(20:26):
Use ChatGPT to teach me.
My daughter, who is six yearsold, who doesn't know how to
type words, uses my speaker onYouTube or uses my Siri to ask
the iPhone to do whatever shewants.
My son doesn't need to writebecause he types on his laptop.
(20:48):
My daughter probably.
She doesn't even have to learnspellings because she can speak
into a speaker and get thingsdone.
When the technology is growingso fast, I think we should also
innovate and change the methodsthat we are using and utilizing
to teach them and make it moreinteractive and cater their
needs.
Dr. Michael Kentris (21:03):
So I know this is not our primary focus of
the conversation, but you bringup an interesting point there
where you've seen a lot ofeducators, not necessarily
medical educators, but you bringup an interesting point there
where you know a lot of.
You've seen a lot of educators.
You know not necessarilymedical educators, but education
in general, talking about likethe loss of handwriting skills.
And I think this is aninteresting phenomenon because
us as people in theneurosciences, this loss of the
(21:28):
motor aspect of learning, right,so we think of you know we're
engaging.
And then there've been likefMRI studies looking at like
handwriting and things like that.
Right, we're engaging bothhemispheres, multiple cross path
networks.
If we move too far away fromsome of these traditional modes
of learning, do we run the riskof losing some capability that
(21:49):
we may not even be aware that wehave?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Va (21:51):
Definitely there is a risk there and I
think that's a very goodquestion you raise there.
But at the same time, if youthink of it another way, they're
multitasking.
They are utilizing their otherparts of the brain to do
something else, so my son cantype and talk to me and he types
much faster than me.
He never learned typing like Idid.
Back in the day we were taughthow to type.
(22:13):
Where is that skill coming from?
So definitely theneuroplasticity.
The brain is adapting to thenew things that they are doing,
like our bodies are adapting toall this food that we are eating
.
Not 500 years ago I don't thinkwe have these pancakes or
waffles back then.
Dr. Michael Kentris (22:27):
I was never exposed to it.
I don't know how well we'readapting to some of those things
, so yeah, good way or bad way,but definitely we are trying to
adapt.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (22:36):
I think neuroplasticity is
something that is going to takeover the new things that they're
doing.
I think their brains are muchfaster than ours, definitely
that.
Dr. Michael Kentris (22:45):
I can tell they're younger.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (22:48):
Yes , much younger.
Dr. Michael Kentris (22:51):
But yeah, I mean, certainly there is that
whole working memory versuscrystallized memory kind of
concept with.
You know, you can't write offexperience entirely in terms of
making some of these like kindof fast thinking modes in terms
of pattern recognition versussolving the problem just de novo
through like a brute strength,if you will.
(23:13):
So but yeah, it's definitely notsomething we're going to be
solving today, but I think it'sjust an interesting thing for us
to keep in mind that weshouldn't be necessarily relying
on any single modality oflearning.
There's good utility in beingable to struggle through a
lecture, or, you know, I've beenreading more classics lately
and my wife's got a master's inEnglish literature and so I was
(23:38):
telling her I'm reallystruggling with this book, you
know, uh, because I was like Iwas really enjoying the previous
one, and she's, like, you know,sometimes studying is hard and
she like said it with nosympathy whatsoever.
So, but it's, it's one of thosethings where, uh, the struggle
is important, you know, where,uh, there is a, a satisfaction
(23:59):
to come from doing somethingthat is hard and challenging and
properly designed.
Certainly games like this canbe useful and that short-term
feedback turnaround is veryimportant for kind of hitting
those reward centers andestablishing those rewards, kind
of in our subconscious.
But then you know that's.
(24:21):
I think part of the problem iswith these lectures.
Like we go, we listen to anhour about the latest updates on
X, y, z, and maybe we don't usethat until we're back on the
wards.
You know, in a week, two weeks,Next time we see a patient with
that complaint, who knows whenwe see a patient with that
complaint, who knows when, andso the the information isn't put
(24:42):
to the test in a quick, shortburst to help again solidify
those in a different pathway.
So so, yeah, I I'm not sayingthat I have the answer either,
but but I think there iscertainly utility in approaching
it from multiple angles I thinkthe biggest thing is efficiency
.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (24:57):
So if I can consolidate 20, 30
questions of information in onegame, versus starting that
through a book or memorization,sitting and reading for two
hours and I'm having somedopamine surge, I'll take the
game.
That's true.
Dr. Michael Kentris (25:15):
So let's say, as you mentioned, so for
people who are interested ininstituting something similar at
their own institution ordesigning things of a similar
nature, any resources orrecommendations that you would
give to our listeners.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (25:33):
What I'm doing is a cost breakdown,
so what we're trying to do issee if people are trying to do
it at a smaller scale, like wedid.
Today, the budget is actuallymuch less.
It won't even cost you $200 perone year of subscription, but
you have to spend somesignificant amount of time.
But also, if you have enoughresources, like
(25:56):
institutional-based licenses onthese platforms that we're going
to talk about, which I'm goingto give you in a second then
probably you might have to spendsomewhere between $500,000 to
$1,000.
And if you want to take it to abigger level, like a production
house, you have people, aproper developer, like a
freelancer, can test and develop.
You know you could spend up to$50,000 creating this.
Dr. Michael Kentris (26:19):
I have no doubt.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (26:20):
Yeah , you can, but I think the
biggest aspect of this is howyou're going to build it and how
much you're going to spend.
Especially the time, as well asmoney, will decide this.
To give you a few tools, youcan use any platforms that could
launch escape games.
There is something called theescape game.
(26:40):
We have used something calledGenially, which is very
educator-friendly.
This is actually designed foreducators and teachers.
Actually, people do use it inIT companies and stuff to make
nice interactive PowerPoints tolaunch their products and
whatnot too.
So it's called Genially, that'show I have used it, but I'm
nowhere related to it and I havedisclosures.
Dr. Michael Kentris (27:02):
I've never been paid by any one of these
you don't own stock in?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasi (27:04):
Genially , no, I don't own stock in
Genially and you can actuallyuse like an escape room maker
the escape game.
Those are a little more pricier, but Genially is very
kid-friendly.
Actually, now that you asked,there's something called Scratch
.
My son codes on it.
He started coding at very youngage, like third grade maybe, so
(27:26):
you can code yourself onScratch and you can build your
tiny game.
So they're very good.
Dr. Michael Kentris (27:31):
I know a lot of people are using things
like ChatGPT or the other LLMsto write code for them.
Like write me a script inPython to do whatever, and it's
working fairly well.
I have very, very limitedcoding background myself, and
it's been kind of interesting toplay around with it a little
bit.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (27:51):
And actually you can use as small
as Google Form or Google Pagesto launch your game.
It will look crude, that's okay.
You don't have to be fancy, butyou can do it as cheap as that.
But in the game itself, youneed a lot of small puzzles,
right?
So we have Jigsaw Explorer, wehave Locky, we have Flow Lab, we
(28:12):
have Crossword Puzzle Maker, soall this will give you a
different like.
You want a lock combination,you'll get one.
You'll want, like, a crosswordPuzzleMaker, you'll get one.
We used all those Nice theseare all free things lying out
there.
So, yeah, we'll give you a listof resources if you want to
post under your podcast.
Dr. Michael Kentris (28:29):
Yeah, we can include those links in the
description for today as well.
Excellent, so, and I'm surethat if there are educators who
are interested in this, wouldyou be open to them reaching out
to you.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (28:42):
Oh, definitely.
We're more than willing to takeit to a larger scale, and then
you will keep continuing to workwith me.
We have many more themes we'rebuilding on in the background Of
course.
We have the subscriptions thatwe can play around In our free
time.
We try to build some of theseand we have more ideas that are
coming in.
We'll see what will come upwith maybe a new theme next year
(29:03):
.
Dr. Michael Kentris (29:04):
So, before we kind of wrap up, I wanted to
open the floor to Dania as well.
You're doing a lot of legworkon this project too.
What did you take away fromthis as a future educator, as a
neurologist training yourself?
What did you learn?
What kind of challenges did yourun into, as you were kind of,
you know, spreading your owneducator muscles?
Dr. Dhanya Gorty (29:27):
For me, I think the most important
challenges were time and budget.
So I did invest a lot of time inthis, because this is an
innovative and a new idea hereat the AAN of time in this,
because this is an innovativeand a new idea here at the AAN,
especially in a virtual setting.
I think time is something thatis depending, or depending on
who, how much you're interestedand willing to invest.
I think that is very relativefor everybody.
(29:48):
But then budget I feel likethat is also something that can
be done in different levels, asDr Vasireddy was mentioning.
You can either go for freeresources that are already
available online, or you can gofor mid-tier, like the one that
we used, something like Geniallyor some other online websites
that are already available,which give you some kind of
background theme, like they giveyou like, either like
(30:10):
interactive elements and somekind of clues that you can
already build on to, and thenthe highest level would be
building it from scratch, likecoding, as you've already
discussed.
So, yes, I think these are thetwo main things and also, apart
from this, I think finding agood mentor who is willing to,
you know, stand by your side isalso very, very important, and
I'm lucky to find dr vasireddyyes, yeah, so no, you both are
(30:32):
very driven.
Dr. Michael Kentris (30:34):
If people want to reach out or talk with
you more about this project orpotential collaborations in the
future, where would be a goodplace for them to find you?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (30:43):
On Twitter and they can reach out
to you.
But I will give you our contact.
You can post it like an emailcontact on your podcast below
and Twitter, linkedin.
We are on all those socialmedia platforms.
Just type in our first name,last name and that's our handle.
Dr. Michael Kentris (31:00):
Any final words of wisdom.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (31:03):
I think I've learned a lot doing
this, good or bad.
Like Dhanya was saying, time isa big thing, especially if a
resident who is already doing somuch you have to work in your
inpatient, outpatient nights,whatnot.
You ask them to do this.
They could feel this could betheir burnout because they have
to give their personal time.
But if you launch it correctlyas a wellness event, it will be
(31:26):
a huge success.
And I think the next big thingthat people will think about is
oh, how can we find theseresources?
Or how are we going to convinceour institution with resources?
And that's where themulti-institute collaborations
you know, multiple people comingtogether to make this a new
theme of education actually canhelp so we can publish more
(31:47):
about this and take it to alarger scale.
I think that's what we shouldlook forward for future.
Dr. Michael Kentris (31:52):
Should we be expecting a future
publication from the two of you?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (31:55):
Based on the success feedback.
If we get some surveys done,definitely this could be a good
poster, if not a paper.
Dr. Michael Kentris (32:02):
Excellent, excellent.
That's how it starts right, andwould it be improper of me to
say that our listeners shouldexpect a future series on
medical education from you to bejoining us here on the
neurotransmitters in the future.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (32:16):
Sneak peek Okay you're looking for a
sneak peek?
Yes, Um, I will becollaborating with you, may be
your longest series podcast.
Um, maybe on resident education.
Dr. Michael Kentris (32:28):
Excellent.
That is something that we arevery passionate about here at
the neurotransmitters, so Iappreciate you and, uh, your
colleagues from the universityof Kentucky for giving us of
your time so generously.
S o thank you again, both ofyou, for giving us of your time
so generously.
So thank you again, both of you, for joining us today to talk
about your project.
I think it's very fascinatingand I think it's going to be
very useful for a lot oftraining programs going forward.
(32:48):
I've been in some of those simlabs and they are not the best
sometimes, but this sounds likeit would be very innovative on
that front.
For anyone who wants to findthem, look in our links and you
can also find me on Twitter,slash x at Dr Kentris
D-R-K-E-N-T-R-I-S, and you canalways subscribe to our email
(33:09):
and find and follow us forfuture updates on the
neurotransmitterscom.
Thank you both again.
So much.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (33:16):
Thank you, Dr Kentris.
Dr. Michael Kentris (33:18):
Are you still listening?
Great Then, dear listener, youare in luck because I am about
to give a sneak peek into someof the project which we were
just discussing.
So after we wrapped ourinterview, dr Vasireddy had me
go through her virtual escaperoom and I will say thematically
, it was very on point.
It was a neurologic emergencyand appropriately was set to a
(33:42):
horror theme to really kind ofget that stressful setting in
place.
I definitely rushed throughsome of the questions and Dr
Vasireddy was kind enough toredirect me gently to get back
on track.
So it definitely made you thinkabout things, and some things
that I haven't thought aboutsince I had to sit for my board
exams.
(34:03):
So definitely a lot of goodinformation for neurology
trainees and a lot of goodteaching points in there.
So kudos again to Dr Vasireddyand Dr Gorty on their hard work
and I can't wait to see whatkind of other scenarios they
build out on this platform.
It looks like it's going to bea lot of fun and I think it'll
be a great way to engagelearners.
Thank you all again forlistening to the end and we'll
(34:24):
see you next time.
Hello and welcome back to the
Neurotransmitters.
I'm your host, dr MichaelKentris, and with me I have two
educators to talk aboutsomething from which there is no
escape, or is there, and thatis escape rooms.
So I have Dr Rani Vasireddy andDr Dhanya Gorty.
Please go ahead, introduceyourselves, tell us a little bit
(00:25):
about your background and kindof open up the subject for us
today.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (00:30):
Thank you.
Thank you, mike.
I'm Rani and I'm one of thecurrent Movement Disorders
Fellow and also an instructor atUniversity of Kentucky, and I
have completed my medicaltraining from India and I have
also completed residency fromUniversity of Kentucky.
I also have a master's inhealthcare administration and,
interestingly, I have adifferent background that took
(00:52):
me up here, which is myhealthcare IT experience, which
gives me an edge in coding andyou know which I can make use of
in various things I do day today, maybe developing EHRs or
sometimes games like this.
So, although I'm a clinicalperson, research person, I do
multiple things in my work.
I think the real passion iseducation and I always try to
(01:15):
improve it in different ways,and I'm a fun-filled person who
likes games and challenges.
That's where I got this idea ofEscape Room, so I used my
coding skills to use and that'show we came up with this idea.
Dr. Michael Kentris (01:28):
I had no idea you had all these other
skills, so I'm looking forwardto diving into those.
Dr. Dhanya Gorty (01:32):
I'm Dhanya Gorty.
I'm an international medicalgraduate from India and I'm an
incoming resident at theUniversity of Kentucky Neurology
Residency Program and a menteeof Dr Vasireddy.
Dr. Michael Kentris (01:43):
Excellent, Excellent.
Well, thank you both for comingand joining us and talking
about your project.
So we, those of us in thissmall recording booth, we are
recording this live at the AANsemi-live and we have this
upcoming event in the educationroom.
So let's start off with, forthose who may not be as familiar
, what is an escape room?
(02:05):
And, as a follow-up to that,what does it have to do with
medical education?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vas (02:10):
Excellent question.
So escape room is, if you do itphysically, it's really a big
room and a room full of cluesand puzzles that you have to
solve through one by one to goto next stage and finally reach
your destination, which is yourfinal objective.
In a real-world escape room,say you're doing a horror escape
(02:31):
room or a crime detectiveescape room your goal is to save
someone from that crime or, youknow, get someone out of that
horror house.
Similarly, in our escape room,we're going to teach you a base
storyline or a learningobjective that we're going to
approach in the form of clinicalquestions and clues and
particularly, like you said,what it has to do with neurology
(02:52):
and education.
We're going to teach them amain storyline and theme based
on one learning objective butincorporating different kinds of
puzzles and clues that they'dsolve through and pass along and
go to next stage and ultimatelythey'll save the patient.
Dr. Michael Kentris (03:08):
I mean, there are a lot of parallels
there to how we practiceclinical medicine, in terms of
kind of going in a step-by-stepfashion, exactly Excellent.
So what inspired you to createa neurology-themed escape room,
and how does that work?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (03:24):
Yeah .
So when me personally, I'veheard of escape rooms before but
I'd never played until I was inresidency.
So one of my colleagues, drBajorski, who has high energy
like me, we both are a good team.
We always go to escape roomsfor our wellness events, thanks
to our program director, drGuduru, who sponsored those to
us.
So anytime we need a wellnessevent, our go-to is Escape Room.
(03:47):
I think we have done at leastfive.
I think we have broke all thefive.
So we are a great team.
So that's the very firstintroduction to Escape Rooms for
me.
So we always wondered, like whycan't this be something
educational?
Why should it always be math,arithmetic, clues, maps?
So that's where my first ideaof we could make this
(04:07):
educational by just puttingeducational puzzles, maybe an
x-ray, maybe a CT, maybesomething like that.
That's where the idea came.
But you know you need physicalroom.
Where do I get physical roomfor that?
I can't.
So then I thought about how canI use my skills, my coding
(04:28):
skills, my idea about using AIand whatnot, and that's how we
started developing this virtualescape room.
And how is it going to work?
I think Dania is a good one totell you about it.
Dr. Michael Kentris (04:35):
Yeah, please.
Dr. Dhanya Gorty (04:36):
So I was always in the hunt for tools
that make learning neurology fun, and that's how I got into
escape rooms in the first place.
I feel that's a perfect blendof education and entertainment,
which I like to call edutainment.
So basically, we have multipleneurology puzzles.
(04:56):
We, as neurologists, lovesolving puzzles in general, so
in the escape room as well, weare.
We're going to have multiplepuzzles, one um leading into
another, all in the backgroundof a case or whatever the
learning objective is um isthere of that particular escape
(05:17):
room.
So that is what is the maintheme of our escape room today.
Dr. Michael Kentris (05:21):
So I'm curious.
You know so, growing up, likemany neurologists, I, I too, am
a nerd and I would play a lot ofthose old computer games like
the point and click, mysteriesand things like that, which you
know do have a lot of commonelements.
You know you need to find theitem to unlock the door, to move
to the next room and so on andso forth.
Does your coding backgroundlike have you been coding any
(05:43):
software or do you have plans inthe future to create something?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vas (05:47):
currently I didn't use the full like sql
coding or anything in thebackground, but I've done enough
research to see which.
Should I look into githubs orwhere can I get escape room
platforms and what, and that'swhere we came up with a cost
efficient platform where I canlaunch my game.
So the biggest part is actuallynot launching and hosting,
because that was actually easierthan what I thought.
(06:09):
The biggest part I think I hadto do a lot of research on is
building a theme that isengaging, end-to-end for the
learner, so they don't losetrack and we're not deviating
from the learning objective.
So what really happens?
Let me go into the minutestdetails here.
So I'm teaching a med student.
You know a simple thing likehey, how do you do a lumbar
(06:34):
puncture?
Say, to do a lumbar puncture,they need to clean the skin.
Next, you know, you go aheadand you drape the person and
then you go ahead and get yourtools in place, localize the
area where you want to go, whichlevel l3, l4, l4, l5 then find
the right spot.
See, it's a linear, one-stepprocess, similarly based on the
complexity.
But you wouldn't teach that toa resident that way or a fellow
(06:56):
that way.
You go further, higher.
Like you know more complexthings.
So, similarly, our puzzles arelinear puzzles, where you give
them one challenge at a time oryou'll do what we call as meta
puzzles, where a group ofpuzzles come together and branch
out to form a final objective.
So to create that meta puzzlesusing a platform with coding is
(07:18):
actually tough, because you haveto write a decision tree and
they have to think all the waysthat learner can think about
like yes, no, and it could beyes or no, and if they did a
mistake, how do you take themback.
So this testing processactually takes longer than you
think, and that's actually whatwe did and we'll teach you more
(07:39):
in our workshop tomorrow if youwant to learn your own I wish I
could make it.
Dr. Michael Kentr (07:43):
Unfortunately my airplane flight will not
allow.
This kind of makes me think ofuh, I don't know if you ever
read any of the choose your ownadventure books from.
You know they're really popularin the 80s and 90s um the
decision tree in particular,because a lot of times it would
be you make the wrong decisionand you die.
So that that's one way to solvethat problem.
But I imagine you're maybe alittle more lenient in your
(08:05):
design.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasi (08:06):
Actually , that's a good point.
First, I wanted them to get thenegative outcome, but it will
really affect their morale andthat is a big thing we both
talked about a lot when we werebuilding.
This is what, if I kill thepatient, will I have the
learning zeal to learn more,continue the game or do it next
time?
So I changed it a little bitand we made sure we are telling
(08:32):
them what they did wrong atevery step, which is what
teaching means.
So we are reiterating them,giving them feedback.
Live in the game.
Okay, you did this, but this iswhat happened to the patient,
so try something else.
So, we're going to send them theproper direction, so there is
no losing in our game.
You will save the patient, butyou might take more time, and
(08:53):
time is the key here.
But you should escape in time,I gotcha, so your model will not
be affected, but you should doit in time.
Dr. Michael Kentris (09:00):
So you've got a ticking clock.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasi (09:01):
Scenario here we have a ticking clock.
Dr. Michael Kentris (09:03):
Very nice, yeah, got to put the heat on a
little bit, so I thought theidea of this meta puzzle is
interesting to me.
Obviously, one of thechallenges making a game in
itself not too challenging, butmaking a game that is
educational, and educationalacross multiple levels of
training that's the realchallenging part.
So did you have to decide,first of all, who your target
(09:26):
audience was, and once you did,how did you refine things from
there?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (09:31):
Yes , that's a very good question.
Actually, that's where westarted our thought process
Should we do it to medicalstudent level or should we cater
it to resident level?
And then we decided to actuallytest it on various people who
will not be playing gametomorrow, and we catered the
session in a way that we cateredthe game in a way that I think
(09:52):
most of the trainees frommedical student level can
actually crack it, but they willneed multiple iterations
probably, which is a learningright.
So what I did was, when I wasbuilding it, we followed the
Kern's six steps of curriculum.
We wanted that to be base of itand on top of it we use what we
call as Bloom's taxonomy.
(10:13):
Bloom's taxonomy actually givesus verbs and things that will
define the learning objectives.
So our learning objective fortomorrow's game at least the
first one that we are going toshowcase is to teach them how to
really run a case scenario.
I'm going to give you a sneakpeek, because you're not going
to publish this tomorrow.
Dr. Michael Kentris (10:34):
Or will.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (10:35):
I.
We're going to teach them howto solve a stroke lead, but you
should know all thedifferentials before you touch
the patient.
So we're going to teach themthe differential diagnosis
aspect of stroke lead and how tobe successful.
So that's the main theme, andthey will be solving various
different kinds of pathology,crossword radiology, as well as
(10:59):
some neuroinfectious whatnotmultiple things on their way to
get to the final answer and savethe patient.
So that's how it's going to berun for tomorrow.
That's our main theme fortomorrow.
But we're coming to Bloom'sTaxonomy.
I'll tell you briefly about it.
It relies on mainly seven steps, but the first step that we
(11:21):
want them to do is remember andrecall the knowledge that they
have learned in their medicalschool and use it in the puzzles
.
Once they recall and remember,next thing is to understand the
puzzle itself and utilize theirskills to solve it.
And third one is application ofthese skills in moving on to
the next stage, which is like itcould be a real-world
(11:43):
simulation of a patient that weuse, like in SimLab.
Similarly, we have a patientsitting there, so they're going
to actually do some things,including physical examination
findings, so which is likeyou're really solving a case.
And last one is the big one isanalysis.
That's where the differentialdiagnosis comes.
Excellent.
So these are the main foursteps.
(12:04):
We do have two more steps whichwe are not going to utilize
tomorrow, which is evaluate atthe end, which is more of a you
debriefing, which we will do noton the stage, and then, lastly,
create.
So we are encouraging them tocreate games like this.
That's the highest step ofBloomstacks on me, which I don't
think we're going to address inour workshop tomorrow, but
we're going to give them thematerial how they could build
(12:25):
their own games.
Dr. Michael Kentris (12:26):
I'm glad you brought up Sim Lab
experience, because it's likealmost as if you're gamifying
what we might see in a Sim Labexperience in some training
programs.
How would you say that thisexperience differs from, say,
like you know, a Sim Lab strokealert experience?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasi (12:42):
Actually in the real world Sim Lab, for
example, we run it as a PGY-2sfor our PGY-1s during
orientation.
There is a mannequin, but themannequin was not doing anything
.
I'm holding a sheet of paperand I was giving them history.
Like, oh, we have a 56-year-oldcoming with right side weakness
, blah, blah, blah, and thestudent is just answering what
(13:03):
he's going to do next.
I don't know what we were doingwith that mannequin there.
Dr. Michael Kentris (13:07):
So we were actually standing there doing
that I have seen some videos ofthese mannequins.
Have you seen these with thepupils that change Like, oh, I'm
having a herniation.
Yeah, it's like, oh, I don'tfeel so good.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (13:17):
So, yes, and the next thing
actually we tried to do, it isactually use one of our
residents as a sim patient.
Yeah, and they would fake theiryou know, mouth drooping and
whatnot.
You know they couldn't lifttheir leg.
You know they couldn't lifttheir leg.
You know.
That makes sense.
Similarly, tomorrow we don'thave a real mannequin sitting
there, but if they click on theinteractive elements, they will
(13:38):
get exact exam of each part.
Nice, so it's very interactive.
So this is more that they asopposed to you giving them the
history they have to seek it out.
Dr. Michael Kentris (13:48):
They have to seek it out like you're
dealing with a patient,excellent.
Now, this is something elsethat people outside of medical
education may not be as familiarwith, and you mentioned the
Kern's criteria, or hierarchy.
I should say Do you want togive us a quick, brief rundown
on that?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (14:02):
Yeah , kern's six-step is very
similar to Bloom's taxonomy thatI just talked about.
Dr. Michael Kentris (14:07):
But yes, I can give you a quick rundownown
yeah, it's kind of like how wewould evaluate, say, the
effectiveness of ourintervention, right, because?
We have like these livefeedback all these beautiful
ideas and you know we put allthis work into our different
learning interventions and thisis kind of like how do we assess
if they're effective or not?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (14:26):
sure .
So in our game, what we'redoing is first, we identified
the problem.
Which is the biggest problem Ithink Dania identified and we
had a lot of discussion about itis how people are not engaging
in the current scenario,especially the Zen Z's who are
used to which I'm going to talkabout tomorrow.
Dr. Michael Kentris (14:44):
So the kids these days.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (14:46):
So my analogy I'm going to use,
which I'm going to use heretoday, is I learned math through
you.
Remember there was Abacus withbeads?
Dr. Dhanya Gorty (14:53):
Oh, yeah, yeah .
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (14:54):
And my son learns his math from
Reflex, math and Prodigy, whichare online gaming platforms.
Okay, so see how different hethinks than me.
So he comes up to med school,for example, tomorrow.
I'm making this up, I don'tthink he'll be a doctor, but say
he comes up to become a doctortomorrow.
Can you ask him to pick up abook and read about stroke?
I?
Dr. Michael Kentris (15:14):
don't think so.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (15:15):
So they expect something
interactive and lively and funway to learn things At the same
time.
That's the first problem.
One is engagement.
Second problem that weidentified was feedback.
So when I wrote my exams maybemy 10th grade, high school
whatnot feedback I got was myreport card A plus or A,
(15:37):
something like that.
And when did I get it?
Maybe a few weeks or a month ortwo, and my father would look
at okay, good job.
But I never knew what I didwrong on my exams.
Right, I always got like what Idid right, but in this way of
format.
Currently, my son does what wecall reflex math, so it really
highlights his fluent areas andnon-fluent areas.
(15:57):
So I can see he can't do ninemultiplied by eight.
Why?
So he's weak in that ninth, youknow element of the table or
whatever.
So I need to work with him onthat.
You know nine multiplied byeight.
I ask him to practice more.
And even the AI gives him moreof the same number again and
again and again.
Reinforcing Similarly our gamewill also create that feedback
system Tells you wrong.
(16:19):
No, this is not the answer.
Do this, do this.
So we are reinforcing the rightanswer in a fun way, and that's
, I think those are two mainproblems we have identified.
And in terms of targeted needsassessment, which is a second
step of Kern's you knowcurriculum, I didn't do a proper
survey sitting there withstudents, definitely like we
would properly do for a Kern sixstep.
(16:39):
But I think I have reached outto enough people who are Zenjis,
like Dania herself, and I haveenough PGY1s and med students
who reached out to us, you knowvarious levels, when we were
teaching, including one of ourown PGY3s who actually did a
needs assessment for strokes inblack.
Oh, excellent, for a differentreason for not this.
And he found out that peoplewere not happy when we did you
(17:01):
know mannequins sitting thereand we were giving out of them.
So he rather wanted interactiveand of course we didn't have
escape room there to do so.
He used real people, realresidents, made it interactive.
So definitely people arelooking for that interactive
element and rather they want tocreate memories than
memorization of the subject,right.
So it's experiential experience, experiential learning, rather
(17:25):
than just sitting and rotting inmemorization, right?
I think that was a small studythat we did as a QA project.
Dr Prabhu who did it, from UK,is one of the things that I can
use.
And the third one is goals andobjectives.
As I said, we use Bloom'staxonomy to create our learning
objectives and we have usededucational strategy, which is
(17:47):
gamification.
And then, lastly, isimplementation, which I'm doing
tomorrow and we'll see how itworks.
As I said, I tested in variouslevels Tested it on a PGY-4,
senior resident, tested it withmed student, tested it on
completely non-medical, justquality tester.
He's an IT person.
(18:08):
All he does is checks.
Every click sees how we areproceeding.
So, yes, I used my cousin to doit and, yeah, I tested it at
various levels.
So, we did implement on adifferent level, not in a stage,
which we are going to dotomorrow.
Lastly, we'll seek feedbackfrom the players who did it
(18:28):
before and after, and that willbe a good evaluation for us if
we are doing the right thing.
Dr. Michael Kentris (18:33):
So should we expect this to become a
regular event at the AAN in thefuture?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (18:38):
Oh, if we are lucky, if we have
good turnout, maybe and I willbe very glad and honored if that
would happen or maybe we'lltake it to a bigger level, maybe
something like head talks or ahub where we have bigger
audience.
Again, this is education based,but definitely neurology
education is a good ground tostart and I think it is.
It caters the needs ofeducators and I'm happy we are
(19:00):
actually launching it inneurology education room.
So many educators will inspirefrom this and maybe build better
games than me.
Dr. Michael Kentris (19:08):
It sounds like it would be very
challenging to do, but I thinkyou bring up a good point in as
much as we are seeing more ofthis gamification kind of uh
spreading throughout the amevery year.
You know, the last couple ofyears we've seen the shark code
breakers from zach london, alichristie and various other
things like on the head talkstage with the uh like double
(19:29):
dare, jeopardy style games aswell, and these are all very
popular events, and so I thinkthere's really a little bit of a
zeitgeist, as you were kind ofhinting at, with the
up-and-coming generation, if youwill, wanting these more
engaging things.
I think we've all sat throughthe long, monotone lecture that
(19:50):
seems like it is only intendedto put you to sleep, and I think
people don't really seek thatout at this point because there
are starting to be these otheroptions.
So thank you for contributingthat to the general atmosphere
here.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (20:06):
Thank you.
Thank you, mike.
I think we should move and weshould change ourselves on how
we are teaching, because backwhen I was a kid, I used
textbooks to read.
Then I moved on to iPads.
Now I use interactive learningenvironments like YouTube myself
.
I'm not even a Gen Z, I'm amillennial.
And then now I even use ChatGPTto teach me.
(20:26):
Use ChatGPT to teach me.
My daughter, who is six yearsold, who doesn't know how to
type words, uses my speaker onYouTube or uses my Siri to ask
the iPhone to do whatever shewants.
My son doesn't need to writebecause he types on his laptop.
(20:48):
My daughter probably.
She doesn't even have to learnspellings because she can speak
into a speaker and get thingsdone.
When the technology is growingso fast, I think we should also
innovate and change the methodsthat we are using and utilizing
to teach them and make it moreinteractive and cater their
needs.
Dr. Michael Kentris (21:03):
So I know this is not our primary focus of
the conversation, but you bringup an interesting point there
where you've seen a lot ofeducators, not necessarily
medical educators, but you bringup an interesting point there
where you know a lot of.
You've seen a lot of educators.
You know not necessarilymedical educators, but education
in general, talking about likethe loss of handwriting skills.
And I think this is aninteresting phenomenon because
us as people in theneurosciences, this loss of the
(21:28):
motor aspect of learning, right,so we think of you know we're
engaging.
And then there've been likefMRI studies looking at like
handwriting and things like that.
Right, we're engaging bothhemispheres, multiple cross path
networks.
If we move too far away fromsome of these traditional modes
of learning, do we run the riskof losing some capability that
(21:49):
we may not even be aware that wehave?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Va (21:51):
Definitely there is a risk there and I
think that's a very goodquestion you raise there.
But at the same time, if youthink of it another way, they're
multitasking.
They are utilizing their otherparts of the brain to do
something else, so my son cantype and talk to me and he types
much faster than me.
He never learned typing like Idid.
Back in the day we were taughthow to type.
(22:13):
Where is that skill coming from?
So definitely theneuroplasticity.
The brain is adapting to thenew things that they are doing,
like our bodies are adapting toall this food that we are eating
.
Not 500 years ago I don't thinkwe have these pancakes or
waffles back then.
Dr. Michael Kentris (22:27):
I was never exposed to it.
I don't know how well we'readapting to some of those things
, so yeah, good way or bad way,but definitely we are trying to
adapt.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (22:36):
I think neuroplasticity is
something that is going to takeover the new things that they're
doing.
I think their brains are muchfaster than ours, definitely
that.
Dr. Michael Kentris (22:45):
I can tell they're younger.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (22:48):
Yes , much younger.
Dr. Michael Kentris (22:51):
But yeah, I mean, certainly there is that
whole working memory versuscrystallized memory kind of
concept with.
You know, you can't write offexperience entirely in terms of
making some of these like kindof fast thinking modes in terms
of pattern recognition versussolving the problem just de novo
through like a brute strength,if you will.
(23:13):
So but yeah, it's definitely notsomething we're going to be
solving today, but I think it'sjust an interesting thing for us
to keep in mind that weshouldn't be necessarily relying
on any single modality oflearning.
There's good utility in beingable to struggle through a
lecture, or, you know, I've beenreading more classics lately
and my wife's got a master's inEnglish literature and so I was
(23:38):
telling her I'm reallystruggling with this book, you
know, uh, because I was like Iwas really enjoying the previous
one, and she's, like, you know,sometimes studying is hard and
she like said it with nosympathy whatsoever.
So, but it's, it's one of thosethings where, uh, the struggle
is important, you know, where,uh, there is a, a satisfaction
(23:59):
to come from doing somethingthat is hard and challenging and
properly designed.
Certainly games like this canbe useful and that short-term
feedback turnaround is veryimportant for kind of hitting
those reward centers andestablishing those rewards, kind
of in our subconscious.
But then you know that's.
(24:21):
I think part of the problem iswith these lectures.
Like we go, we listen to anhour about the latest updates on
X, y, z, and maybe we don't usethat until we're back on the
wards.
You know, in a week, two weeks,Next time we see a patient with
that complaint, who knows whenwe see a patient with that
complaint, who knows when, andso the the information isn't put
(24:42):
to the test in a quick, shortburst to help again solidify
those in a different pathway.
So so, yeah, I I'm not sayingthat I have the answer either,
but but I think there iscertainly utility in approaching
it from multiple angles I thinkthe biggest thing is efficiency
.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (24:57):
So if I can consolidate 20, 30
questions of information in onegame, versus starting that
through a book or memorization,sitting and reading for two
hours and I'm having somedopamine surge, I'll take the
game.
That's true.
Dr. Michael Kentris (25:15):
So let's say, as you mentioned, so for
people who are interested ininstituting something similar at
their own institution ordesigning things of a similar
nature, any resources orrecommendations that you would
give to our listeners.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (25:33):
What I'm doing is a cost breakdown,
so what we're trying to do issee if people are trying to do
it at a smaller scale, like wedid.
Today, the budget is actuallymuch less.
It won't even cost you $200 perone year of subscription, but
you have to spend somesignificant amount of time.
But also, if you have enoughresources, like
(25:56):
institutional-based licenses onthese platforms that we're going
to talk about, which I'm goingto give you in a second then
probably you might have to spendsomewhere between $500,000 to
$1,000.
And if you want to take it to abigger level, like a production
house, you have people, aproper developer, like a
freelancer, can test and develop.
You know you could spend up to$50,000 creating this.
Dr. Michael Kentris (26:19):
I have no doubt.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasiredd (26:20):
Yeah , you can, but I think the
biggest aspect of this is howyou're going to build it and how
much you're going to spend.
Especially the time, as well asmoney, will decide this.
To give you a few tools, youcan use any platforms that could
launch escape games.
There is something called theescape game.
(26:40):
We have used something calledGenially, which is very
educator-friendly.
This is actually designed foreducators and teachers.
Actually, people do use it inIT companies and stuff to make
nice interactive PowerPoints tolaunch their products and
whatnot too.
So it's called Genially, that'show I have used it, but I'm
nowhere related to it and I havedisclosures.
Dr. Michael Kentris (27:02):
I've never been paid by any one of these
you don't own stock in?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasi (27:04):
Genially , no, I don't own stock in
Genially and you can actuallyuse like an escape room maker
the escape game.
Those are a little more pricier, but Genially is very
kid-friendly.
Actually, now that you asked,there's something called Scratch
.
My son codes on it.
He started coding at very youngage, like third grade maybe, so
(27:26):
you can code yourself onScratch and you can build your
tiny game.
So they're very good.
Dr. Michael Kentris (27:31):
I know a lot of people are using things
like ChatGPT or the other LLMsto write code for them.
Like write me a script inPython to do whatever, and it's
working fairly well.
I have very, very limitedcoding background myself, and
it's been kind of interesting toplay around with it a little
bit.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (27:51):
And actually you can use as small
as Google Form or Google Pagesto launch your game.
It will look crude, that's okay.
You don't have to be fancy, butyou can do it as cheap as that.
But in the game itself, youneed a lot of small puzzles,
right?
So we have Jigsaw Explorer, wehave Locky, we have Flow Lab, we
(28:12):
have Crossword Puzzle Maker, soall this will give you a
different like.
You want a lock combination,you'll get one.
You'll want, like, a crosswordPuzzleMaker, you'll get one.
We used all those Nice theseare all free things lying out
there.
So, yeah, we'll give you a listof resources if you want to
post under your podcast.
Dr. Michael Kentris (28:29):
Yeah, we can include those links in the
description for today as well.
Excellent, so, and I'm surethat if there are educators who
are interested in this, wouldyou be open to them reaching out
to you.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (28:42):
Oh, definitely.
We're more than willing to takeit to a larger scale, and then
you will keep continuing to workwith me.
We have many more themes we'rebuilding on in the background Of
course.
We have the subscriptions thatwe can play around In our free
time.
We try to build some of theseand we have more ideas that are
coming in.
We'll see what will come upwith maybe a new theme next year
(29:03):
.
Dr. Michael Kentris (29:04):
So, before we kind of wrap up, I wanted to
open the floor to Dania as well.
You're doing a lot of legworkon this project too.
What did you take away fromthis as a future educator, as a
neurologist training yourself?
What did you learn?
What kind of challenges did yourun into, as you were kind of,
you know, spreading your owneducator muscles?
Dr. Dhanya Gorty (29:27):
For me, I think the most important
challenges were time and budget.
So I did invest a lot of time inthis, because this is an
innovative and a new idea hereat the AAN of time in this,
because this is an innovativeand a new idea here at the AAN,
especially in a virtual setting.
I think time is something thatis depending, or depending on
who, how much you're interestedand willing to invest.
I think that is very relativefor everybody.
(29:48):
But then budget I feel likethat is also something that can
be done in different levels, asDr Vasireddy was mentioning.
You can either go for freeresources that are already
available online, or you can gofor mid-tier, like the one that
we used, something like Geniallyor some other online websites
that are already available,which give you some kind of
background theme, like they giveyou like, either like
(30:10):
interactive elements and somekind of clues that you can
already build on to, and thenthe highest level would be
building it from scratch, likecoding, as you've already
discussed.
So, yes, I think these are thetwo main things and also, apart
from this, I think finding agood mentor who is willing to,
you know, stand by your side isalso very, very important, and
I'm lucky to find dr vasireddyyes, yeah, so no, you both are
(30:32):
very driven.
Dr. Michael Kentris (30:34):
If people want to reach out or talk with
you more about this project orpotential collaborations in the
future, where would be a goodplace for them to find you?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (30:43):
On Twitter and they can reach out
to you.
But I will give you our contact.
You can post it like an emailcontact on your podcast below
and Twitter, linkedin.
We are on all those socialmedia platforms.
Just type in our first name,last name and that's our handle.
Dr. Michael Kentris (31:00):
Any final words of wisdom.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy (31:03):
I think I've learned a lot doing
this, good or bad.
Like Dhanya was saying, time isa big thing, especially if a
resident who is already doing somuch you have to work in your
inpatient, outpatient nights,whatnot.
You ask them to do this.
They could feel this could betheir burnout because they have
to give their personal time.
But if you launch it correctlyas a wellness event, it will be
(31:26):
a huge success.
And I think the next big thingthat people will think about is
oh, how can we find theseresources?
Or how are we going to convinceour institution with resources?
And that's where themulti-institute collaborations
you know, multiple people comingtogether to make this a new
theme of education actually canhelp so we can publish more
(31:47):
about this and take it to alarger scale.
I think that's what we shouldlook forward for future.
Dr. Michael Kentris (31:52):
Should we be expecting a future
publication from the two of you?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (31:55):
Based on the success feedback.
If we get some surveys done,definitely this could be a good
poster, if not a paper.
Dr. Michael Kentris (32:02):
Excellent, excellent.
That's how it starts right, andwould it be improper of me to
say that our listeners shouldexpect a future series on
medical education from you to bejoining us here on the
neurotransmitters in the future.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (32:16):
Sneak peek Okay you're looking for a
sneak peek?
Yes, Um, I will becollaborating with you, may be
your longest series podcast.
Um, maybe on resident education.
Dr. Michael Kentris (32:28):
Excellent.
That is something that we arevery passionate about here at
the neurotransmitters, so Iappreciate you and, uh, your
colleagues from the universityof Kentucky for giving us of
your time so generously.
S o thank you again, both ofyou, for giving us of your time
so generously.
So thank you again, both of you, for joining us today to talk
about your project.
I think it's very fascinatingand I think it's going to be
very useful for a lot oftraining programs going forward.
(32:48):
I've been in some of those simlabs and they are not the best
sometimes, but this sounds likeit would be very innovative on
that front.
For anyone who wants to findthem, look in our links and you
can also find me on Twitter,slash x at Dr Kentris
D-R-K-E-N-T-R-I-S, and you canalways subscribe to our email
(33:09):
and find and follow us forfuture updates on the
neurotransmitterscom.
Thank you both again.
So much.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasired (33:16):
Thank you, Dr Kentris.
Dr. Michael Kentris (33:18):
Are you still listening?
Great Then, dear listener, youare in luck because I am about
to give a sneak peek into someof the project which we were
just discussing.
So after we wrapped ourinterview, dr Vasireddy had me
go through her virtual escaperoom and I will say thematically
, it was very on point.
It was a neurologic emergencyand appropriately was set to a
(33:42):
horror theme to really kind ofget that stressful setting in
place.
I definitely rushed throughsome of the questions and Dr
Vasireddy was kind enough toredirect me gently to get back
on track.
So it definitely made you thinkabout things, and some things
that I haven't thought aboutsince I had to sit for my board
exams.
(34:03):
So definitely a lot of goodinformation for neurology
trainees and a lot of goodteaching points in there.
So kudos again to Dr Vasireddyand Dr Gorty on their hard work
and I can't wait to see whatkind of other scenarios they
build out on this platform.
It looks like it's going to bea lot of fun and I think it'll
be a great way to engagelearners.
Thank you all again forlistening to the end and we'll
(34:24):
see you next time.
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