Working in the medical field requires a wide range of knowledge, skills, and above all precision. According to WHO 2.6 million people die due to unsafe healthcare which underlines the importance of avoiding medical mistakes by empowering future medical students and creating a creative learning atmosphere to prepare them for what they will encounter as doctors, surgeons, obstetrics, etc.
The technology significantly impacts helping students and fresh graduates to become more familiar with the medical processes. In the next 20 years, all educational centers and hospitals will step on a new path to be involved with virtual reality by using modern gadgets. The world would be simulated to show students how to manage themselves in stressful situations and emergency conditions and learn to develop their skills and get familiar with the range of diseases by visiting patients and analyzing the symptoms. They apply all the lessons in a virtual environment which gives a massive chance to students to work on virtual patients without fearing doing it.
It allows students to learn in a virtual reality space and get hands- on experience in this modern world, then start their job after getting ready. Students can also be present in every live and real treatment session or surgery without being there physically. It gives them a great opportunity to make themselves prepared before visiting a patient, gives them more self-esteem about their abilities, and of course, reduces human errors in health care.
Using VR provides mass education for students without any limits. They attend the lectures from their home, working on several cases at any time, doing trial and error and simulations, and preparing for future work.
Using VR in this field is cost-beneficial for everyone. Still, more important, it helps to gain the knowledge of doctors to reduce the risks of medical errors in the world, especially in developing countries. As this technology will help people, governments can be part of this effective action and give subsidies to universities and hospitals to help the nations and the world. It can be seen as an investment for the government because they give money now to prevent some significant issues in the future. And as all say, prevention is better than occurrence.
Sources:
Jasarevic, T. (2019). WHO calls for urgent action to reduce patient harm in healthcare. Retrieved from WHO: https://www.who.int/news/item/13-09-2019-who-calls-for-urgent-action-to-reduce-patient-harm-in-healthcare
Morozova, A. (2020). Top Real World Examples of Using Virtual Reality in Medicine. Retrieved from jasoren: https://jasoren.com/top-real-world-examples-of-using-virtual-reality-in-medicine/
Shetty, R. (2021). Virtual reality: A medical training revolution during COVID-19. Retrieved from med-technews: https://www.med-technews.com/medtech-insights/vr-in-healthcare-insights/virtual-reality-a-medical-training-revolution-during-covid-1/
Virtual Reality in Medical Training: Educate Better, Save More Lives. (2021). Retrieved from program-ace: https://program-ace.com/blog/virtual-reality-in-medical-training/
Hi Farshad, you have written an interesting piece about the use of VR for the education of medical students. I do concur with many of the benefits that you have stated in the article, such as that students are able to gain practical experience and develop their skills without having to compromise the safety of patients as it all takes place in a virtual world. Additionally, I think VR is also useful to reduce overcrowding that often happens in operating rooms, for example. Limits to the number of students are able to learn from real-life procedures are eliminated since they do not need to physically be present.
On the other hand, I think it is important to touch upon the potential disadvantages of VR learning for medical students as well. First of all, it will be a difficult transition to a full virtual learning experience for teachers, hospital staff and also students as many not very familiar with the technology. Additionally, I wonder whether VR is able to mimic human emotions and behaviour well enough to prepare medical students for real-life patient contact and procedures. Therefore, I think VR based education should complement physical training instead of entirely replacing it. I am interested in hearing what you think might cause issues with the adoption of VR in medicinal education.