The continuous development of digital technology has deepened the integration of metaverse applications with various medical activities such as medical research, diagnostic governance, and health management. Metaverse in medicine is constantly improving the efficiency of medical activities, improving user experience, and allocating resources more effectively. At the same time, it has also raised new challenges for legal norms and compliance supervision. This article briefly reviews the legal norms and compliance regulatory logic of medical activities under traditional conditions. It also discusses new models of diagnosis and treatment such as remote diagnosis and digital diagnosis, as well as new models of medical robots and digital doctors, and other medical activities in the metaverse. It attempts to initially summarize the relevant norms and regulatory patterns of metaverse in medicine, and proposes thoughts on innovating and improving the legal norms and compliance supervision of metaverse in medicine.

Key Words: metaverse; metaverse in medicine; legal norms; compliance supervision

Along with the research and application of metaverse in medicine, the development of consensus and guidelines has also been pushed to the agenda. However, since metaverse in medicine is a new thing, it is necessary to consider its particularity to formulate consensus and guidelines that are innovative, scientific, practical, and beneficial to the public. To achieve this, the following aspects need to be considered,(1) interdisciplinary integration: metaverse in medicine is a product of the cross-integration of medicine, information technology, artificial intelligence and other disciplines. Therefore, in the process of formulating consensus and guidelines for metaverse in medicine, it is necessary to absorb the opinions and suggestions of multidisciplinary experts to ensure their comprehensiveness and professionalism. This interdisciplinary integration makes the consensus and guidelines unique and complex in content. (2) Technological innovation: the core technologies that the metaverse in medicine focus on, such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and extended reality (XR), are all innovative technologies that have developed rapidly in recent years, and their applications in the medical field are still in the exploratory stage. Therefore, consensus and guidelines need to pay attention to the latest technological trends and provide cutting-edge guidance for related research and practice. (3) Diversity of application scenarios: the metaverse in medicine covers a wide range of application scenarios, including medical education, preventive health care, clinical diagnosis, treatment intervention, and rehabilitation management, which makes it necessary to consider the actual needs and technical challenges in different scenarios in the process of compiling the consensus and guidelines, and provide targeted solutions and suggestions. (4) Regulatory and ethical requirements: since metaverse in medicine involves sensitive issues such as patient privacy and data security, it is necessary to fully consider the ethical requirements of relevant regulations when formulating consensus and guidelines. Consensus and guidelines need to clarify compliance requirements for data collection, processing, storage, and transmission to ensure patient privacy and data security. To sum up, the particularity of the consensus and guildlines for metaverse in medicine is mainly reflected in interdisciplinary integration, technological innovation, diversity of application scenarios, and regulatory and ethical requirements. These particularities make it necessary to be more cautious and comprehensive in the compilation process to ensure its scientific and practical nature.

Key Words: metaverse; metaverse in medicine; consensus; guideline 

Patient education is of great significance for medical care and public health, but currently faces multiple challenges. These include incomplete educational content, single delivery methods, lack of continuous education, information asymmetry between doctors and patients, communication barriers, low patient compliance, and imperfect evaluation methods. Metaverse can provide virtual reality and augmented reality technologies to offer virtual medical education with features such as virtual reality environments, personalized learning paths, real-time learning interaction and feedback, social interaction and sharing, emotional support and psychological counseling, intelligent monitoring and evaluation, and continuous medical support. This can effectively help patients master medical knowledge, greatly improve the coverage and efficiency of patient education. Therefore, the consensus was developed to promote the empowerment of patient education through metaverse, aiming to achieve the vision of preventing diseases with renowned doctors and benefiting the public with metaverse doctors” as soon as possible.

Keywords: metaverse; medical education

With the development and popularization of digital technologies, the healthcare sector is undergoing unprecedented changes. Digitization and globalization have not only changed our view of healthcare services and health management, but also put forward new propositions for health economics. In the era of metaverse, health economics must better understand and guide the allocation of healthcare resources, the formulation of health policies, and the provision of healthcare services. This paper aims to explore health economics in the era of the metaverse, including the core research areas of traditional health economics, research directions in the era of the metaverse, possible assessment methodology of health economics, and strategies to address the challenges, to provide decision support for better adaptation to the needs of the metauniverse era and the high-quality development of the healthcare industry in the era of the metaverse.

Key Words: metaverse; metaverse in medicine; health economics

Teaching rounds in metaverse represent an innovative method in medical education, combining metaverse technology with contemporary educational theories to provide medical students with a new learning platform. This teaching method allows students to immerse themselves in simulation clinical environments, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of patients’ conditions and treatment plans. During teaching rounds in metaverse, medical students can enter a simulated hospital environment through virtual reality technology, observe the conditions and symptoms of virtual patients, interact with them, conduct operations such as medical history collection and physical examination, and even participate in virtual surgeries. Meanwhile, teachers can provide real-time guidance and commentary using metaverse technology, helping students better master the relevant knowledge and skills. This teaching method has several advantages: (1)teaching rounds in metaverse allow students to experience clinical environments more realistically, thereby enhancing their interest in progressing and motivation to learn. (2)Virtual environments can simulate a variety of rare and complex cases, allowing students to be exposed to more clinical scenarios. (3)Metaverse technology can facilitate real-time assessment of and feedback on students’ operations, helping them promptly identify and correct mistakes. As technology continues to advance and application scenarios expand, metaverse teaching rounds will become a key feature in the development of medical education. 

Key Words: metaverse in medicine; internet of things; teaching rounds; virtual reality; augmented reality

Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response that caused by infection or trauma, often resulting in multiple organ dysfunction. Its mortality rate is relatively high, ranging between 54% and 68%, and ineffective treatment and poor prognosis pose significant challenges to healthcare in recent years. One of the main pathogeneses of sepsis-induced liver injury is oxidative stress (OS), which refers to a state where the antioxidant system cannot balance oxidative products, leading to the accumulation of excessive oxidative products in the body. When sepsis occurs, the amount of reactive oxygen species produced by the body increases far beyond the levels that can be scavenged by the antioxidant system, thus damaging liver cells and aggravating liver damage. This article introduces the oxidative/antioxidant system, oxidative stress-related pathways, and the molecular mechanism of OS in various types of hepatocytes, with emphasis on the antioxidant treatment on different hepatocytes, in order to understand the mechanism of OS involved in the development and progression of sepsis-associated liver injury. As the research deepens, improving liver function through the treatment of different cells and facilitating related clinical research are expected to provide a new target pathway for the treatment of sepsis-associated liver injury. 

Objective: To investigate electrode weight reduction through structural modifications, focusing on variations in the thickness of circular electrodes to meet mechanical requirements. Additionally, optimal welding parameters were identified via experimental methods. Methods: Three electrode thicknesses were designed: 0.2 mm (T1), 0.3 mm (T2), and 0.4 mm (T3). The finite element method was used to analyze the stress, strain, and thermal effects on the surrounding tissue. In vitro tissue experiments assessed the mechanical strength of the anastomosis by measuring tear force and rupture pressure. Results: Among the three designs, the T3 electrode exhibited the lowest strain (1.2%) and stress (122.26 MPa). Thermal simulations showed maximum tissue damage of 53.3% and minimum damage of 48.6%. The maximum tear force (9.87±0.83 N) and rupture pressure (222.88±13.48 mmHg) were achieved with a compression force of 20 N, welding power of 160 W, and welding time of 8 seconds. Conclusion: T3 electrode demonstrated superior mechanical performance in the finite element analysis and successfully completed in vitro welding while minimizing electrode weight. Optimal welding parameters were identified.