Abstract: A virtual human interaction system for use on a PC or web-enabled computer facilitates the training and education of medical services practitioners by allowing them to virtually interact with a virtual patient delivered by the system and displayed on the computer screen. The system embodies a plurality of cases, and for each case, there are a number of possible outcomes, depending on the choices made by the medical services practitioner at each stage in a particular case. Together with the virtual patient displayed by the system, also incorporated into the system are a plurality of appearance descriptors which can be applied to the virtual patient by the system so as to cause a change in the appearance based on real-life human conditions which affect the physical appearance of humans generally and which are thus mimicked in the virtual patient. The resulting effect is to provide users with an almost real-time indication of their actions on patients.