The potential of SecondLife comes alive in this presentation. This virtual hospital is scheduled to open in 2011 by - PALOMAR WEST MEDICAL CENTER . Palomar West Medical Center is a Magnet designated facility.
This site was designed with the purpose of making the general public aware of socially relevant diseases and help them judge the potentially dangerous disease at early stages . It is a Medical Diagnosis System in SecondLife.
"Second life does provide social presence through the avatars we use, lots of opportunities for role play (let's face it, it is at a minimum a role play game), and yes it is immersive, allowing you to experience human from inside the cell walls or visit a detailed simulation of the Cistine Chapel. But the real power of Second Life as a virtual venue for your teaching and learning is the ability to translate real content into something really exciting and powerful. That of course is where the difficulty lies isn't it?"
A good introduction video with many examples and uses. From the description:
An overview of educational uses of Second Life including educational locations, tools, and learning archetypes that are applicable to Second Life.
"Welcome to RezEd (BETA), an online hub providing practitioners using virtual worlds with access to the highest quality resources and research in the field to establish a strong network of those using virtual worlds for learning."