Singapore Institute of TechnologySIT brought us a gap every medical school knows about. Their students can name the disease, list the symptoms and prescribe the right drug — and then freeze in front of an actual patient. Nobody had taught them how totalk: how to open, how to ask the question that surfaces the detail the patient did not think was important, how to get the history out of someone who is anxious and vague.
So we built the patient. A 3D avatar sits across from the student and behaves like a real one — volunteering little, hedging, drifting off the point, getting uneasy when pushed too fast. The student has to run the consultation themselves. There is no menu of options and no right answer to click.
The part SIT liked most happens when the consultation ends. The avatar changes character on the spot — same session, new person — and becomes the teacher. It walks back through what the student actually asked, what they could have asked instead, and, most usefully, the questions they never asked at all. Feedback lands while the conversation is still fresh, from the “patient” who just lived through it.






