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Logging on the website, the visiting teens will speak with real doctors about their sexual and drug problems.(Photo through Google) |
CAIRO — Spain has launched a virtual portal on the computer-generated world of Second Life to help shy teens who are too embarrassed to speak to doctors about their sexual or drug problems, reported the Guardian on Saturday, May 10.
"This idea started as a way to connect health professionals and adolescents and to give internet users a reliable space to get health advice," Luis Aguillera, president of the Spanish Society for Family and Community Medicine (FYC).
The FYC and the Coalition for Citizens with Chronic Illnesses have set up a portal through the Second Life website to offer health advice to shy teens.
Logging on the website, the visiting teens will speak with real doctors.
What will appear is an image of a consulting room with a doctor and a typical patient.
The FYC plans to open a number of other portals for chronic diseases in six months.
Second Life is a virtual world entirely built and owned by its booming population of over nine million subscribed users.
In the animated world, real people use their avatars to "live" alternate identities in a virtual community, complete with homes, cars and shopping malls.
Since it was created in 2003 by the San Francisco-based Linden Labs, it grew exponentially.
Linden Lab says about half a million people regularly visit Second Life, where commercial transactions can be carried out in Linden dollars, convertible to US dollars.
Many corporations, including Dell, MTV and Reuters, have set up virtual offices in Second Life lucrative markets
Speak Out
The FYC president said the new portal offers shy adolescents a space to speak out.
"Even though a virtual consultation can never substitute for a real face-to-face one, we will be able to deal with problems of dermatology and psychology through a webcam," he said.
Doctor Rosario Jimenez, of the Adolescent Attention Working Group, agrees.
"This is a way to talk about their doubts about taking drugs or sexual relations which they cannot do in a traditional consultation," said Jimenez.
Jimenez, who will spend up to four hours a week answering their virtual patients' questions, said that teenagers don't often go to see doctors.
"But this is an efficient and amusing tool to reach them because we can both use the same route," she said.
"Even though they do not often suffer serious illnesses, they often expose themselves to risks which can develop into problems in the future."
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