Immersive teaching using virtual reality technology to improve ophthalmic surgical skills for medical postgraduate students

ABSTRACT

Medical education is primarily based on practical schooling and the accumulation of experience and skills, which is important for the growth and development of young ophthalmic surgeons. However, present learning and refresher methods are constrained by several factors. Nevertheless, virtual reality (VR) technology has considerably contributed to medical training worldwide, providing convenient and practical auxiliary value for the selection of students’ sub-majors. Moreover, it offers previously inaccessible surgical step training, scenario simulations, and immersive evaluation exams. This paper outlines the current applications of VR immersive teaching methods for ophthalmic surgery interns.

KEYWORDS:

• Artificial intelligence
• virtual reality
• medical education
• ophthalmic surgery
• postgraduate

Acknowledgments

The authors especially thank Xiaodan Huang (Eye Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhejiang Provincial Clinical Research Center for Eye Diseases, Zhejiang Provincial Engineering Institute on Eye Diseases) for project advice and helpful discussions.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Author contributions

S Yang and X Jin conceived this study and drafted the manuscript. S Yang, N Wang, Q Gao and X Jin prepared and reviewed the manuscript. All the authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81900816, S.Y.) and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LQ19H120010, S.Y.).