Parvati Dev, PhD, is CEO of SimTabs LLC. She completed her doctorate at Stanford University and did post-doctoral research at M.I.T. It was a stint in industry that showed her that she could build products that changed how a physician or surgeon performed their task. She returned to Stanford University to start a learning technology group that placed Stanford’s medical students at the leading edge of the e-learning revolution, winning awards along the way for her team’s use of high performance networks and virtual reality. In 2008, she began developing products commercially to do the same for the medical professional. Today her “Health TeamSpaces” virtual hospitals provide spaces for nurses, doctors, pharmacists and therapists to practice together, learning in the safety of a simulation, correcting personal and team errors, and emerging with confidence in their ability to help real patients.

The ability to speak truth to power can be learned and practiced and is critical in high-stakes communications, such as medical treatment and surgery. Parvati describes how virtual environments provide immersive context and support for skill development, practice and coaching.