Presenter:
Imaan Benmerzouga, Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine
The use of virtual reality (VR) in medical education has been shown to be effective by increasing student engagement and learning. VR is an immersive approach that allows students to interact with a virtual environment that mimics the real world, transforming their experience from passive knowledge acquisition to active application. Medical Physiology is an intensive 10-week course at the Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine (KPCOM) taken by first-year medical students. In the fall of 2023, we piloted the use of VR to supplement lectures covering the anatomy and physiology of the autonomic nervous system, utilizing two immersive learning technology platforms: 3D Organon and Acadicus VR. Preliminary data suggest that the use of VR sessions improve student performance on questions associated with the topic. Based on this data, we developed two additional VR sessions to be implemented in the fall of 2024 using the platform for patient interaction, Acadicus VR. In this presentation, we will provide the strategies used to identify the topics that will benefit from using VR, how we designed/implemented the session and how we plan to continue to use VR sessions in the medical physiology course at KPCOM.
Learning Outcomes:
Participants will:
- Explain virtual reality and its uses in medical education.
- Outline the approach to identify areas that will benefit from using virtual reality.
- Discuss various assessment/readout outcomes to assess the validity and impact of using virtual reality in the teaching of basic sciences.
Stock Music provided by AmoreMore, from Pond5
