Virtual Reality Medical Training: It is Just Another Healthcare Revolution?

When sportspeople go through a bad phase, they are advised by their coaches to visualize themselves achieving their goals successfully. Do you know why?

There’s always been a strong mental connection between performance and seeing oneself as being successful. Visualizing yourself on the ladder of success certainly helps you boost your confidence level. And that’s exactly why VR can be an innovative technology for training.

Virtual reality in the healthcare industry is already being used effectively to train medical students, new surgeons and help medical professionals refresh their skills. As Virtual Reality is rocking in the field of technology and entertainment, health sectors are also finding new and innovative ways to utilize VR systems over old-school training techniques.

Immersive Learning Technology Is Bringing Education and Training Into the Future

Extended reality is no longer just for out-of-this-world sci-fi movies. Virtual reality has made major strides in the past 20 years, and with augmented reality and mixed reality being used more often in real-world applications, the technology is becoming more versatile than ever imagined. The future of learning and workplace training is connected to immersive learning technology.

As technology becomes more ubiquitous and affordable, several types of immersive tech or extended reality (xR) are becoming accessible to educators and companies. “Extended” is a blanket term for many kinds of xR. Currently, the most popular types of xR are augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality.

AR/VR in Education: Next Steps

According to a report by Goldman Sachs, in 2020 the revenue for VR/AR educational software would be around $300 million and this figure is expected to grow to $700 million by 2025. As investments continue to rise, the quality of content improves and the cost of hardware decreases, the technology is now accessible to educational institutes worldwide.

The AR/VR technology has the potential of being the biggest breakthrough in the education system in the 21st century. It would help students take a step away from memorization and exams and allow them to learn through active participation and experience. It’s important that the educational institutions study aspects of AR and VR technology to find the right tools to make the difference in the learning experience of students.

Virtual reality in the healthcare industry is already being used effectively to train medical students, new surgeons and help medical professionals refresh their skills. As Virtual Reality is rocking in the field of technology and entertainment, health sectors are also finding new and innovative ways to utilize VR systems over old-school training techniques.

“In hospitals and healthcare centers alone, VR technology is already being used effectively to train medical students”

On that note, let’s find out what are the different ways medical training centers are using virtual reality.

Training medical students in the healthcare department

VR is being used in medical schools and other healthcare setups for instructing and educating. Medical students now have a more interactive method to learn and understand the human body and its systems, within the VR environment.

From a learner’s point, the possibilities are unlimited, as trainees can perform ‘hands on’ operations in a controlled and safe environment. Trainees can afford to make mistakes and learn from it in the VR setup where there is literally no risk at all; both patients and trainees are in a safe zone. By interacting with virtual patients, medical students can learn new skills which they later use in the real world.

Challenges for the future of RL in learning and training processes.  

Some of the common challenges of using augmented reality technology is that there is a struggle for teachers to use the new technologies. In addition, not all students have smartphones capable of supporting AR content. Virtual Reality, on the other hand, faces completely different challenges. High material costs, accessibility, and lack of quality content are some of the limitations that have prevented VR from being the cutting edge technology in education.

However, in recent years, companies such as Simlab IT have emerged to make it easier to introduce VR into learning and training processes.