Virtual reality-based medical training and assessment: The multidisciplinary relationship between clinicians, educators and developers

Abstract

Background: The current focus on patient safety and evidence-based medical education has led to an increased interest in utilising virtual reality (VR) for medical training. The development of VR-based systems require experts from different disciplines to collaborate with shared and agreed objectives throughout a system's development process. Both the development of technology as well as the incorporation and evaluation of relevant training have to be given the appropriate attention.

Aim: The aim of this article is to illustrate how constructive relationships can be established between stakeholders to develop useful and usable VR-based medical training systems.

Methods: This article reports a case study of two research projects that developed and evaluated a VR-based training system for spinal anaesthesia.

Results: The case study illustrates how close relationships can be established by champion clinicians leading research in this area and by closely engaging clinicians and educators in iterative prototype design throughout a system's development process.

Conclusion: Clinicians and educators have to strive to get more involved (ideally as champions of innovation) and actively guide the development of VR-based training and assessment systems. System developers have to strive to ensure that clinicians and educators are participating constructively in the developments of such systems.

Notes

1. DBMT was an Irish research project partly funded by the Health Service Executive, Ireland.

2. MedCAP was a European project funded by the European Commission through grant no. LLP/LdV/TOI/2007/IRL-513 within the Lifelong Learning Programme, Leonardo da-Vinci sub-programme.