VR Medical Training – This is as real as it gets. This will save lives
Now doctors and nurses can stand in separate countries and practice trauma in a virtual emergency reception in Trøndelag. “More training saves lives,” says a senior consultant. We see that the patient is breathing and that his eyes blink. Chief physician and gastrointestinal surgeon Thanos Xanthoulis has put on his VR glasses and suddenly his avatar is standing in the trauma room doing tasks.
He presses in thin air, but on the screen we see him pressing the right buttons and doing procedures like in real life.
This is as real as it gets. This will save lives,” he said.
VR simulation centre – Good for smaller hospitals
Thanos Xanthoulis is a senior consultant and gastrointestinal surgeon at Levanger Hospital and associate professor at NTNU, and has a burning commitment to virtual training of health personnel.
“The large university hospitals have their own laboratories, with advanced manikins that you have the opportunity to practice on. But this is not relevant in smaller hospitals such as Levanger and Namsos. We don’t have the resources or money for that,” he said.
The goal is to practice eight times a year at the trauma clinic at Levanger Hospital. But in order to do so, they have to shut off parts of the emergency room and use the trauma room for practice for several hours. In addition, the entire staff practicing must have markers, facilitators and people to help make it as real as possible.
This is good training, but we can’t do this too often because it requires so much resources. We are talking about trauma teams consisting of several specialties and professional groups. If I’m invited to participate once a year in an exercise like that, I’m happy,” Xanthoulis said.
He participated in a joint simulation with colleagues in Singapore, Oslo, Finland, England and Arendal.
“These were different players involved in the development and testing of a VR-based trauma simulation platform developed by the company SkillUP. The hospitals in Levanger and Namsos have been among the Norwegian hospitals that were invited to participate in beta testing of the product. It was a very exciting experience.
Such a solution could eventually allow us to increase the number of training sessions without affecting daily operations,” says Xanthoulis.
Can be chastised
The person who sits in front of the computer and leads the exercise can give the participants many challenges.
“The situation can suddenly deteriorate. Whoever controls the scenario can see what the individuals in the team are doing, add problems along the way, and make it absolutely terrible for those involved.
At Levanger Hospital, medical and nursing students have daily simulations in the virtual world.
It seems that the students take great pleasure in practicing with VR. It’s a bit scary to simulate in the simulation lab at school (Campus Røstad) with half of the cohort in the next room, who follow on the screen what everyone is doing. In that sense, it takes some weight off the shoulders in VR where you have less fear of failure. The program gives you feedback and you can get really chastised if you have forgotten something or have not done things in a certain order.
You can even kill a patient if, for example, you give penicillin to a patient who obviously needs it but is also allergic,” says Thanos Xanthoulis.
No risk
Thanos Xanthoulis thinks the most fun thing is seeing adult colleagues aged 40+ who get to try on the glasses for the first time.
“It’s quite a task to keep track of them once they’ve got their glasses on. The very first time it was worse than in kindergarten,” he says, with a good laugh.
But now he only has young people in the lab. We are involved when four nursing students and one who is going to become a doctor get to try their hand at the virtual world at Levanger Hospital.
They are trying to solve different medical scenarios on a platform provided by Oxford Medical Simulation.
“It’s fun,” says Ida Røberg Hovdar from Klæbu, and continues:
“It’s a great way to get a go without there being any risk to the patient.
The virtual patient has difficulty breathing and pain on the left side.
“When you listened to the patient, there was reduced sound on one lung. It was a former COPD patient.
It was exciting to meet this type of patient in a virtual simulation. says Sindre Sæther from Orkland.
This was the second time Emilie Skjemstad Rønning from Steinkjer got to try her hand at the virtual hospital world.
“It’s very educational and exciting that we get to test on patients without putting people at risk. We really get to test ourselves.
Ragnhild Wohlen from Verdal likes to get concrete feedback on what has been done right and wrong.
“You’re in a bubble when you’re at it. It feels partly like computer games, but the patient case itself is very real. This was better than expected.
Medical student Benjamin Chapman from Flisa also had the same patient.
“I think it’s good that you get to try and stress a little bit in peace and that you get clear feedback.
At the forefront
NTNU is among the first universities in the world that has the infrastructure to use VR systematically for teaching locally and remotely.
“NTNU is at the forefront of VR technology. Several groups conduct research in different areas of health and technology education,” says Professor Aslak Steinsbekk at NTNU. He leads the VR lab at Øya, which is used for training in medical education.
There are several examples where VR can provide good learning outcomes, but across studies on effect, the most common is that it gives the same effect as traditional training, but is perceived as more enjoyable, which can provide increased motivation for further training.
How far has VR medical simulation technology come?
The hardware, the physical equipment, is good and cheap enough. And for a lot of money, you can buy equipment that also covers tactile (stimulation of the sense of touch) needs.
What is the most important thing this technology can contribute?
New opportunities for training “on demand”, and we have access to training programs that are realistic exactly when you need. It also allows for training on things that are difficult in real life such as accidents and other acute events that happen infrequently, but where one must know what to do.
Source: This is the English translation of an article originally published in Adressa, a local newspaper in Norway
