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The Neurotransmitters: Clinical Neurology Education
Virtual Escape Rooms in Neurology Education with Drs. Vasireddy and Gorty
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.
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Hello and welcome back to the Neurotransmitters. I'm your host, dr Michael Kentris, and with me I have two educators to talk about something from which there is no escape, or is there, and that is escape rooms. So I have Dr Rani Vasireddy and Dr Dhanya Gorty. Please go ahead, introduce yourselves, tell us a little bit about your background and kind of open up the subject for us today.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Thank you. Thank you, mike. I'm Rani and I'm one of the current Movement Disorders Fellow and also an instructor at University of Kentucky, and I have completed my medical training from India and I have also completed residency from University of Kentucky. I also have a master's in healthcare administration and, interestingly, I have a different background that took me up here, which is my healthcare IT experience, which gives me an edge in coding and you know which I can make use of in various things I do day to day, maybe developing EHRs or sometimes games like this. So, although I'm a clinical person, research person, I do multiple things in my work. I think the real passion is education and I always try to improve it in different ways, and I'm a fun-filled person who likes games and challenges. That's where I got this idea of Escape Room, so I used my coding skills to use and that's how we came up with this idea.
Dr. Michael Kentris:I had no idea you had all these other skills, so I'm looking forward to diving into those.
Dr. Dhanya Gorty:I'm Dhanya Gorty. I'm an international medical graduate from India and I'm an incoming resident at the University of Kentucky Neurology Residency Program and a mentee of Dr Vasireddy.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Excellent, Excellent. Well, thank you both for coming and joining us and talking about your project. So we, those of us in this small recording booth, we are recording this live at the AAN semi-live and we have this upcoming event in the education room. So let's start off with, for those who may not be as familiar, what is an escape room? And, as a follow-up to that, what does it have to do with medical education?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Excellent question. So escape room is, if you do it physically, it's really a big room and a room full of clues and puzzles that you have to solve through one by one to go to next stage and finally reach your destination, which is your final objective. In a real-world escape room, say you're doing a horror escape room or a crime detective escape room your goal is to save someone from that crime or, you know, get someone out of that horror house. Similarly, in our escape room, we're going to teach you a base storyline or a learning objective that we're going to approach in the form of clinical questions and clues and particularly, like you said, what it has to do with neurology and education. We're going to teach them a main storyline and theme based on one learning objective but incorporating different kinds of puzzles and clues that they'd solve through and pass along and go to next stage and ultimately they'll save the patient.
Dr. Michael Kentris:I mean, there are a lot of parallels there to how we practice clinical medicine, in terms of kind of going in a step-by-step fashion, exactly Excellent. So what inspired you to create a neurology-themed escape room, and how does that work?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Yeah. So when me personally, I've heard of escape rooms before but I'd never played until I was in residency. So one of my colleagues, dr Bajorski, who has high energy like me, we both are a good team. We always go to escape rooms for our wellness events, thanks to our program director, dr Guduru, who sponsored those to us. So anytime we need a wellness event, our go-to is Escape Room. I think we have done at least five. I think we have broke all the five. So we are a great team.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So that's the very first introduction to Escape Rooms for me. So we always wondered, like why can't this be something educational? Why should it always be math, arithmetic, clues, maps? So that's where my first idea of we could make this educational by just putting educational puzzles, maybe an x-ray, maybe a CT, maybe something like that. That's where the idea came. But you know you need physical room. Where do I get physical room for that? I can't. So then I thought about how can I use my skills, my coding skills, my idea about using AI and whatnot, and that's how we started developing this virtual escape room. And how is it going to work? I think Dania is a good one to tell you about it.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Yeah, please.
Dr. Dhanya Gorty: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 blend of education and entertainment, which I like to call edutainment. So basically, we have multiple neurology puzzles. We, as neurologists, love solving puzzles in general, so in the escape room as well, we are. We're going to have multiple puzzles, one um leading into another, all in the background of a case or whatever the learning objective is um is there of that particular escape room. So that is what is the main theme of our escape room today.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So I'm curious. You know so, growing up, like many neurologists, I, I too, am a nerd and I would play a lot of those old computer games like the point and click, mysteries and things like that, which you know do have a lot of common elements. You know you need to find the item to unlock the door, to move to the next room and so on and so forth. Does your coding background like have you been coding any software or do you have plans in the future to create something?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:currently I didn't use the full like sql coding or anything in the background, but I've done enough research to see which. Should I look into githubs or where can I get escape room platforms and what, and that's where we came up with a cost efficient platform where I can launch my game. So the biggest part is actually not launching and hosting, because that was actually easier than what I thought. The biggest part I think I had to do a lot of research on is building a theme that is engaging, end-to-end for the learner, so they don't lose track and we're not deviating from the learning objective. So what really happens? Let me go into the minutest details here.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So I'm teaching a med student. You know a simple thing like hey, how do you do a lumbar puncture? Say, to do a lumbar puncture, they need to clean the skin. Next, you know, you go ahead and you drape the person and then you go ahead and get your tools in place, localize the area where you want to go, which level l3, l4, l4, l5 then find the right spot.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:See, it's a linear, one-step process, similarly based on the complexity. But you wouldn't teach that to a resident that way or a fellow that way. You go further, higher. Like you know more complex things. So, similarly, our puzzles are linear puzzles, where you give them one challenge at a time or you'll do what we call as meta puzzles, where a group of puzzles come together and branch out to form a final objective. So to create that meta puzzles using a platform with coding is actually tough, because you have to write a decision tree and they have to think all the ways that learner can think about like yes, no, and it could be yes or no, and if they did a mistake, how do you take them back. So this testing process actually takes longer than you think, and that's actually what we did and we'll teach you more in our workshop tomorrow if you want to learn your own I wish I could make it.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Unfortunately my airplane flight will not allow. This kind of makes me think of uh, I don't know if you ever read any of the choose your own adventure books from. You know they're really popular in the 80s and 90s um the decision tree in particular, because a lot of times it would be you make the wrong decision and you die. So that that's one way to solve that problem. But I imagine you're maybe a little more lenient in your design.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Actually, that's a good point. First, I wanted them to get the negative outcome, but it will really affect their morale and that is a big thing we both talked about a lot when we were building. This is what, if I kill the patient, will I have the learning zeal to learn more, continue the game or do it next time? So I changed it a little bit and we made sure we are telling them what they did wrong at every step, which is what teaching means. So we are reiterating them, giving them feedback. Live in the game. Okay, you did this, but this is what happened to the patient, so try something else.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So, we're going to send them the proper direction, so there is no losing in our game. You will save the patient, but you might take more time, and time is the key here. But you should escape in time, I gotcha, so your model will not be affected, but you should do it in time.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So you've got a ticking clock.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Scenario here we have a ticking clock.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Very nice, yeah, got to put the heat on a little bit, so I thought the idea of this meta puzzle is interesting to me. Obviously, one of the challenges making a game in itself not too challenging, but making a game that is educational, and educational across multiple levels of training that's the real challenging part. So did you have to decide, first of all, who your target audience was, and once you did, how did you refine things from there?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Yes, that's a very good question. Actually, that's where we started our thought process Should we do it to medical student level or should we cater it to resident level? And then we decided to actually test it on various people who will not be playing game tomorrow, and we catered the session in a way that we catered the game in a way that I think most of the trainees from medical student level can actually crack it, but they will need multiple iterations probably, which is a learning right. So what I did was, when I was building it, we followed the Kern's six steps of curriculum. We wanted that to be base of it and on top of it we use what we call as Bloom's taxonomy. Bloom's taxonomy actually gives us verbs and things that will define the learning objectives. So our learning objective for tomorrow's game at least the first one that we are going to showcase is to teach them how to really run a case scenario. I'm going to give you a sneak peek, because you're not going to publish this tomorrow.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Or will.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:I. We're going to teach them how to solve a stroke lead, but you should know all the differentials before you touch the patient. So we're going to teach them the differential diagnosis aspect of stroke lead and how to be successful. So that's the main theme, and they will be solving various different kinds of pathology, crossword radiology, as well as some neuroinfectious whatnot multiple things on their way to get to the final answer and save the patient. So that's how it's going to be run for tomorrow. That's our main theme for tomorrow.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:But we're coming to Bloom's Taxonomy. I'll tell you briefly about it. It relies on mainly seven steps, but the first step that we want them to do is remember and recall the knowledge that they have learned in their medical school and use it in the puzzles. Once they recall and remember, next thing is to understand the puzzle itself and utilize their skills to solve it. And third one is application of these skills in moving on to the next stage, which is like it could be a real-world simulation of a patient that we use, like in SimLab.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Similarly, we have a patient sitting there, so they're going to actually do some things, including physical examination findings, so which is like you're really solving a case. And last one is the big one is analysis. That's where the differential diagnosis comes. Excellent. So these are the main four steps. We do have two more steps which we are not going to utilize tomorrow, which is evaluate at the end, which is more of a you debriefing, which we will do not on the stage, and then, lastly, create. So we are encouraging them to create games like this.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:That's the highest step of Bloomstacks on me, which I don't think we're going to address in our workshop tomorrow, but we're going to give them the material how they could build their own games.
Dr. Michael Kentris:I'm glad you brought up Sim Lab experience, because it's like almost as if you're gamifying what we might see in a Sim Lab experience in some training programs. How would you say that this experience differs from, say, like you know, a Sim Lab stroke alert experience?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Actually in the real world Sim Lab, for example, we run it as a PGY-2s for our PGY-1s during orientation. There is a mannequin, but the mannequin was not doing anything. I'm holding a sheet of paper and I was giving them history. Like, oh, we have a 56-year-old coming with right side weakness, blah, blah, blah, and the student is just answering what he's going to do next. I don't know what we were doing with that mannequin there.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So we were actually standing there doing that I have seen some videos of these mannequins. Have you seen these with the pupils that change Like, oh, I'm having a herniation. Yeah, it's like, oh, I don't feel so good.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So, yes, and the next thing actually we tried to do, it is actually use one of our residents as a sim patient. Yeah, and they would fake their you know, mouth drooping and whatnot. You know they couldn't lift their leg. You know they couldn't lift their leg. You know. That makes sense. Similarly, tomorrow we don't have a real mannequin sitting there, but if they click on the interactive elements, they will get exact exam of each part. Nice, so it's very interactive.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So this is more that they as opposed to you giving them the history they have to seek it out.
Dr. Michael Kentris:They have to seek it out like you're dealing with a patient, excellent. Now, this is something else that people outside of medical education may not be as familiar with, and you mentioned the Kern's criteria, or hierarchy. I should say Do you want to give us a quick, brief rundown on that?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Yeah, kern's six-step is very similar to Bloom's taxonomy that I just talked about.
Dr. Michael Kentris:But yes, I can give you a quick rundownown yeah, it's kind of like how we would evaluate, say, the effectiveness of our intervention, right, because? We have like these live feedback all these beautiful ideas and you know we put all this work into our different learning interventions and this is kind of like how do we assess if they're effective or not?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:sure. So in our game, what we're doing is first, we identified the problem. Which is the biggest problem I think Dania identified and we had a lot of discussion about it is how people are not engaging in the current scenario, especially the Zen Z's who are used to which I'm going to talk about tomorrow.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So the kids these days.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So my analogy I'm going to use, which I'm going to use here today, is I learned math through you. Remember there was Abacus with beads?
Dr. Dhanya Gorty:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:And my son learns his math from Reflex, math and Prodigy, which are online gaming platforms. Okay, so see how different he thinks than me. So he comes up to med school, for example, tomorrow. I'm making this up, I don't think he'll be a doctor, but say he comes up to become a doctor tomorrow. Can you ask him to pick up a book and read about stroke? I?
Dr. Michael Kentris:don't think so.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So they expect something interactive and lively and fun way to learn things At the same time. That's the first problem. One is engagement. Second problem that we identified was feedback. So when I wrote my exams maybe my 10th grade, high school whatnot feedback I got was my report card A plus or A, something like that. And when did I get it? Maybe a few weeks or a month or two, and my father would look at okay, good job. But I never knew what I did wrong on my exams. Right, I always got like what I did right, but in this way of format.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Currently, my son does what we call reflex math, so it really highlights his fluent areas and non-fluent areas. So I can see he can't do nine multiplied by eight. Why? So he's weak in that ninth, you know element of the table or whatever. So I need to work with him on that. You know nine multiplied by eight. I ask him to practice more. And even the AI gives him more of the same number again and again and again. Reinforcing Similarly our game will also create that feedback system Tells you wrong. No, this is not the answer. Do this, do this. So we are reinforcing the right answer in a fun way, and that's, I think those are two main problems we have identified.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:And in terms of targeted needs assessment, which is a second step of Kern's you know curriculum, I didn't do a proper survey sitting there with students, definitely like we would properly do for a Kern six step. But I think I have reached out to enough people who are Zenjis, like Dania herself, and I have enough PGY1s and med students who reached out to us, you know various levels, when we were teaching, including one of our own PGY3s who actually did a needs assessment for strokes in black. Oh, excellent, for a different reason for not this. And he found out that people were not happy when we did you know mannequins sitting there and we were giving out of them. So he rather wanted interactive and of course we didn't have escape room there to do so. He used real people, real residents, made it interactive. So definitely people are looking for that interactive element and rather they want to create memories than memorization of the subject, right. So it's experiential experience, experiential learning, rather than just sitting and rotting in memorization, right?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:I think that was a small study that 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 and objectives. As I said, we use Bloom's taxonomy to create our learning objectives and we have used educational strategy, which is gamification. And then, lastly, is implementation, which I'm doing tomorrow and we'll see how it works. As I said, I tested in various levels Tested it on a PGY-4, senior resident, tested it with med student, tested it on completely non-medical, just quality tester. He's an IT person. All he does is checks. Every click sees how we are proceeding. So, yes, I used my cousin to do it and, yeah, I tested it at various levels.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So, we did implement on a different level, not in a stage, which we are going to do tomorrow. Lastly, we'll seek feedback from the players who did it before and after, and that will be a good evaluation for us if we are doing the right thing.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So should we expect this to become a regular event at the AAN in the future?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Oh, if we are lucky, if we have good turnout, maybe and I will be very glad and honored if that would happen or maybe we'll take it to a bigger level, maybe something like head talks or a hub where we have bigger audience. Again, this is education based, but definitely neurology education is a good ground to start and I think it is. It caters the needs of educators and I'm happy we are actually launching it in neurology education room. So many educators will inspire from this and maybe build better games than me.
Dr. Michael Kentris:It sounds like it would be very challenging to do, but I think you bring up a good point in as much as we are seeing more of this gamification kind of uh spreading throughout the am every year. You know, the last couple of years we've seen the shark code breakers from zach london, ali christie and various other things like on the head talk stage with the uh like double dare, jeopardy style games as well, and these are all very popular events, and so I think there's really a little bit of a zeitgeist, as you were kind of hinting at, with the up-and-coming generation, if you will, wanting these more engaging things. I think we've all sat through the long, monotone lecture that seems like it is only intended to put you to sleep, and I think people don't really seek that out at this point because there are starting to be these other options. So thank you for contributing that to the general atmosphere here.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Thank you. Thank you, mike. I think we should move and we should change ourselves on how we are teaching, because back when I was a kid, I used textbooks to read. Then I moved on to iPads. Now I use interactive learning environments like YouTube myself. I'm not even a Gen Z, I'm a millennial. And then now I even use ChatGPT to teach me. Use ChatGPT to teach me. My daughter, who is six years old, who doesn't know how to type words, uses my speaker on YouTube or uses my Siri to ask the iPhone to do whatever she wants. My son doesn't need to write because he types on his laptop. My daughter probably. She doesn't even have to learn spellings because she can speak into a speaker and get things done. When the technology is growing so fast, I think we should also innovate and change the methods that we are using and utilizing to teach them and make it more interactive and cater their needs.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So I know this is not our primary focus of the conversation, but you bring up an interesting point there where you've seen a lot of educators, not necessarily medical educators, but you bring up an interesting point there where you know a lot of. You've seen a lot of educators. You know not necessarily medical educators, but education in general, talking about like the loss of handwriting skills. And I think this is an interesting phenomenon because us as people in the neurosciences, this loss of the motor aspect of learning, right, so we think of you know we're engaging. And then there've been like fMRI studies looking at like handwriting and things like that. Right, we're engaging both hemispheres, multiple cross path networks. If we move too far away from some of these traditional modes of learning, do we run the risk of losing some capability that we may not even be aware that we have?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Definitely there is a risk there and I think that's a very good question you raise there. But at the same time, if you think of it another way, they're multitasking. They are utilizing their other parts of the brain to do something else, so my son can type and talk to me and he types much faster than me.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:He never learned typing like I did. Back in the day we were taught how to type. Where is that skill coming from? So definitely the neuroplasticity. The brain is adapting to the new things that they are doing, like our bodies are adapting to all this food that we are eating. Not 500 years ago I don't think we have these pancakes or waffles back then.
Dr. Michael Kentris:I was never exposed to it. I don't know how well we're adapting to some of those things, so yeah, good way or bad way, but definitely we are trying to adapt.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:I think neuroplasticity is something that is going to take over the new things that they're doing. I think their brains are much faster than ours, definitely that.
Dr. Michael Kentris:I can tell they're younger.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Yes, much younger.
Dr. Michael Kentris:But yeah, I mean, certainly there is that whole working memory versus crystallized memory kind of concept with.
Dr. Michael Kentris:You know, you can't write off experience entirely in terms of making some of these like kind of fast thinking modes in terms of pattern recognition versus solving the problem just de novo through like a brute strength, if you will.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So but yeah, it's definitely not something we're going to be solving today, but I think it's just an interesting thing for us to keep in mind that we shouldn't be necessarily relying on any single modality of learning. There's good utility in being able to struggle through a lecture, or, you know, I've been reading more classics lately and my wife's got a master's in English literature and so I was telling her I'm really struggling with this book, you know, uh, because I was like I was really enjoying the previous one, and she's, like, you know, sometimes studying is hard and she like said it with no sympathy whatsoever. So, but it's, it's one of those things where, uh, the struggle is important, you know, where, uh, there is a, a satisfaction to come from doing something that is hard and challenging and properly designed. Certainly games like this can be useful and that short-term feedback turnaround is very important for kind of hitting those reward centers and establishing those rewards, kind of in our subconscious.
Dr. Michael Kentris:But then you know that's. I think part of the problem is with these lectures. Like we go, we listen to an hour about the latest updates on X, y, z, and maybe we don't use that 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 when we see a patient with that complaint, who knows when, and so the the information isn't put to the test in a quick, short burst to help again solidify those in a different pathway. So so, yeah, I I'm not saying that I have the answer either, but but I think there is certainly utility in approaching it from multiple angles I think the biggest thing is efficiency.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:So if I can consolidate 20, 30 questions of information in one game, versus starting that through a book or memorization, sitting and reading for two hours and I'm having some dopamine surge, I'll take the game. That's true.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So let's say, as you mentioned, so for people who are interested in instituting something similar at their own institution or designing things of a similar nature, any resources or recommendations that you would give to our listeners.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:What I'm doing is a cost breakdown, so what we're trying to do is see if people are trying to do it at a smaller scale, like we did. Today, the budget is actually much less. It won't even cost you $200 per one year of subscription, but you have to spend some significant amount of time. But also, if you have enough resources, like institutional-based licenses on these platforms that we're going to talk about, which I'm going to give you in a second then probably you might have to spend somewhere between $500,000 to $1,000. And if you want to take it to a bigger level, like a production house, you have people, a proper developer, like a freelancer, can test and develop. You know you could spend up to $50,000 creating this.
Dr. Michael Kentris:I have no doubt.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Yeah, you can, but I think the biggest aspect of this is how you're going to build it and how much you're going to spend. Especially the time, as well as money, will decide this. To give you a few tools, you can use any platforms that could launch escape games. There is something called the escape game. We have used something called Genially, which is very educator-friendly. This is actually designed for educators and teachers. Actually, people do use it in IT companies and stuff to make nice interactive PowerPoints to launch their products and whatnot too. So it's called Genially, that's how I have used it, but I'm nowhere related to it and I have disclosures.
Dr. Michael Kentris:I've never been paid by any one of these you don't own stock in?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Genially, no, I don't own stock in Genially and you can actually use 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 young age, like third grade maybe, so you can code yourself on Scratch and you can build your tiny game. So they're very good.
Dr. Michael Kentris:I know a lot of people are using things like ChatGPT or the other LLMs to write code for them. Like write me a script in Python to do whatever, and it's working fairly well. I have very, very limited coding background myself, and it's been kind of interesting to play around with it a little bit.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:And actually you can use as small as Google Form or Google Pages to launch your game. It will look crude, that's okay. You don't have to be fancy, but you can do it as cheap as that. But in the game itself, you need a lot of small puzzles, right? So we have Jigsaw Explorer, we have Locky, we have Flow Lab, we have Crossword Puzzle Maker, so all this will give you a different like. You want a lock combination, you'll get one. You'll want, like, a crossword PuzzleMaker, you'll get one. We used all those Nice these are all free things lying out there. So, yeah, we'll give you a list of resources if you want to post under your podcast.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Yeah, we can include those links in the description for today as well. Excellent, so, and I'm sure that if there are educators who are interested in this, would you be open to them reaching out to you.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Oh, definitely. We're more than willing to take it to a larger scale, and then you will keep continuing to work with me. We have many more themes we're building on in the background Of course. We have the subscriptions that we can play around In our free time. We try to build some of these and we have more ideas that are coming in. We'll see what will come up with maybe a new theme next year.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So, before we kind of wrap up, I wanted to open the floor to Dania as well. You're doing a lot of legwork on this project too. What did you take away from this as a future educator, as a neurologist training yourself? What did you learn? What kind of challenges did you run into, as you were kind of, you know, spreading your own educator muscles?
Dr. Dhanya Gorty:For me, I think the most important challenges were time and budget.
Dr. Dhanya Gorty:So I did invest a lot of time in this, because this is an innovative and a new idea here at the AAN of time in this, because this is an innovative and a new idea here at the AAN, especially in a virtual setting.
Dr. Dhanya Gorty:I think time is something that is depending, or depending on who, how much you're interested and willing to invest. I think that is very relative for everybody. But then budget I feel like that is also something that can be done in different levels, as Dr Vasireddy was mentioning. You can either go for free resources that are already available online, or you can go for mid-tier, like the one that we used, something like Genially or some other online websites that are already available, which give you some kind of background theme, like they give you like, either like interactive elements and some kind of clues that you can already build on to, and then the highest level would be building it from scratch, like coding, as you've already discussed. So, yes, I think these are the two main things and also, apart from this, I think finding a good mentor who is willing to, you know, stand by your side is also very, very important, and I'm lucky to find dr vasireddy yes, yeah, so no, you both are very driven.
Dr. Michael Kentris:If people want to reach out or talk with you more about this project or potential collaborations in the future, where would be a good place for them to find you?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:On Twitter and they can reach out to you. But I will give you our contact. You can post it like an email contact on your podcast below and Twitter, linkedin. We are on all those social media platforms. Just type in our first name, last name and that's our handle.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Any final words of wisdom.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:I think I've learned a lot doing this, good or bad. Like Dhanya was saying, time is a big thing, especially if a resident who is already doing so much you have to work in your inpatient, outpatient nights, whatnot. You ask them to do this. They could feel this could be their burnout because they have to give their personal time. But if you launch it correctly as a wellness event, it will be a huge success. And I think the next big thing that people will think about is oh, how can we find these resources? Or how are we going to convince our institution with resources? And that's where the multi-institute collaborations you know, multiple people coming together to make this a new theme of education actually can help so we can publish more about this and take it to a larger scale. I think that's what we should look forward for future.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Should we be expecting a future publication from the two of you?
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy: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:Excellent, excellent. That's how it starts right, and would it be improper of me to say that our listeners should expect a future series on medical education from you to be joining us here on the neurotransmitters in the future.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Sneak peek Okay you're looking for a sneak peek? Yes, Um, I will be collaborating with you, may be your longest series podcast. Um, maybe on resident education.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Excellent. That is something that we are very passionate about here at the neurotransmitters, so I appreciate you and, uh, your colleagues from the university of Kentucky for giving us of your time so generously. S o thank you again, both of you, 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 fascinating and I think it's going to be very useful for a lot of training programs going forward. I've been in some of those sim labs and they are not the best sometimes, but this sounds like it would be very innovative on that front. For anyone who wants to find them, 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 can always subscribe to our email and find and follow us for future updates on the neurotransmitterscom. Thank you both again. So much.
Dr. Rani Priyanka Vasireddy:Thank you, Dr Kentris.
Dr. Michael Kentris:Are you still listening?
Dr. Michael Kentris:Great Then, dear listener, you are in luck because I am about to give a sneak peek into some of the project which we were just discussing.
Dr. Michael Kentris:So after we wrapped our interview, dr Vasireddy had me go through her virtual escape room and I will say thematically, it was very on point. It was a neurologic emergency and appropriately was set to a horror theme to really kind of get that stressful setting in place. I definitely rushed through some of the questions and Dr Vasireddy was kind enough to redirect me gently to get back on track. So it definitely made you think about things, and some things that I haven't thought about since I had to sit for my board exams. So definitely a lot of good information for neurology trainees and a lot of good teaching points in there. So kudos again to Dr Vasireddy and Dr Gorty on their hard work and I can't wait to see what kind of other scenarios they build out on this platform. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun and I think it'll be a great way to engage learners. Thank you all again for listening to the end and we'll see you next time.
