The Start to Transformative Decade for Medical Education with Extended Reality

The Start to Transformative Decade for Medical Education with Extended Reality
Authored by
David King Lassman

Education, like all industries, has had its share of transformative moments: the blackboard, textbooks, computers – evolutions that have made the process of teaching more effective and efficient while raising standards and driving learning outcomes.

Today, we are on the cusp of another such landmark as the sector embraces Extended Reality (XR) which, through augmented and mixed reality, brings to life some of the most challenging aspects of teaching complex models and simulation in an immersive environment.

In recent years, educational institutions globally have been key early adopters of immersive technologies, but students have been confined to fully virtual worlds and, often, clunky computer-generated graphics. With the introduction of Mixed Reality headsets (such as Microsoft Hololens), for the first time, the virtual can be superimposed directly into the real world, bringing quantifiable benefits to both educators and learners.

Extended reality applications create teaching environments of lifelike simulation, bringing new definitions to complex models, structures, and content that lends itself to three-dimensional interaction (like the human anatomy).

Early research has pointed to the pedagogical value of XR, such as retention enhancement, and through its collaborative approach, has been shown to deepen the learning experience. In medical education, XR can dramatically enhance the impact of analog tools like manikins, books, and even cadavers and, in some cases, can reduce costs because it is not limited to scale or application.

How XR Enhances Medical Training

Visualization

XR can provide more interactive, vivid lessons for students. XR is a proven aid in student retention and can immerse students in lifelike procedures and anatomical models in unprecedented ways. These augmented realities have been shown in studies to increase student motivation and engagement, and can also bring confidence to students prior to clinical application.

XR environments help students visualize the human body and internal functions better than two-dimensional representations. Rather than anatomy being presented through video, book images, or slides, 3D environments give students greater depth and relative position. Students can walk around 3D representations and interact with the displays in a more authentic and captivating way than they can with textbooks and videos.

Simulation

XR adds to existing medical training methods as it gives students a way to simulate tasks, which is documented to be one of the most effective ways humans learn. Students that perform a task are observed to retain 90% of that experience, vs. only 20% of what they hear or 30% of what they see. And as XR learning is as much an unlimited resource as any software program, the student can practice procedures such as drawing blood or performing surgical techniques again and again until they have the procedure down.

Enhancing Resources

Resources are precious, especially with detailed models and human cadavers. XR allows organizations to extend limited resources and offers a way for students to have a more independent exploration of 3D anatomy than their cadaveric experience might offer. Cadavers must be handled very carefully as they are too delicate to allow for repeated deep exploration, which often leads instructors to limit their use to the study of superficial muscles to avoid the wear and tear that deeper exploration brings.

Systems and features which may be difficult or even impossible to see in a cadaveric specimen can be explored through XR. The lymphatic system, for example, which is not visible in a cadaver, is clear to see in an XR environment. Also, deeper muscles and organs are easily viewed, removed, and viewed again – repeat processes not feasible with cadavers. By combining XR training with the cadaveric experience, educators can offer their students a more robust and well-rounded study of the human body.

In addition, XR can be brought into any physical environment such as the classroom. It does not require investment in dedicated facilities nor is there constraint around how frequently resources can be accessed.

Customizations

XR environments can have a “plug-and-play” element, which allows educators to include crafted scenarios, scenarios that may be more relevant in particular regions. For example, regions that experience high rates of burns, as in mining communities, can gear training specifically towards burn injuries as the result of mining accidents.

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface in how XR content will transform how nursing and medical schools teach and their students learn. The evolving content also fuels the devices being developed. XR is also useful in medical education as this technology is the direction the medical industry is on. XR applications are already being used to connect doctors to remote patients (and doctors to remote doctors) from diagnosis to surgery. It is useful for medical students to be familiar with XR platforms to communicate and deliver care.

Applications, like HoloPatient and HoloHuman that run on the Microsoft HoloLens 2, are helping to achieve the single most important goal in education: driving better learning outcomes through collaborative, engaging, transformative holographic 3D content. It also allows for cost-effective tools that significantly reduce costs for educational and healthcare institutions.