It’s 4am and sleeping medical students at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine are woken abruptly by a call from a “virtual patient”. The computer-generated patient, speaking like a real human being, complains of chest pain. Bleary eyed students then need to advise and treat their “virtual patients” – the results forming part of their course evaluation.

This high-tech teaching program, called MyCaseSpace, is being launched next year at UCF with more than a dozen further universities interested the software. It was developed by UCF Assistant Professor David Segal, who developed the program for his health classes so students could learn how to properly evaluate and diagnose conditions.