UTILIZATION AND EFFECTIVENESS OF VIRTUAL REALITY IN UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL CURRICULUM: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Creators: name: Azhar, Farah
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Education
subject: digital learning
subject: simulation
subject: Technology enhanced learning
subject: undergraduate curriculum
subject: Virtual Reality

description: INTRODUCTION: Augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality (VR)–based technologies open interesting ways of teaching and training in medical education. They allow for immersive experiences that may foster the teaching and learning of complex medical contents1. This systematic review was conducted to answer following research questions: 1. What are the instances in which Virtual Reality has been utilised successfully in undergraduate medical curriculum. 2. What are the pros and cons of utilising VR in Undergraduate medical curriculum against traditional teaching. METHODS: I searched databases of Google scholar, Pubmed, Scopus and Taylor and Francis were using keywords such as Virtual Reality/immersive reality in Undergraduate curriculum and technology based-learning. The selection of studies for analysis was guided by PICOS2 (population, intervention, comparison, outcome, study design) framework. Population in selected studies comprised undergraduate medical students and Intervention was use of any form of virtual reality interface (360 degree video or interactive VR etc). Comparison in selected studies was against traditional teaching strategies like lectures, demonstrations, videos and using plastic models. Outcome of selected studies must be in form of assessing effectiveness of VR against traditional methods. Study should be in English language and should be published in time frame of year 2015-2022. Out of 60 studies analysed, 16 were included in this research based on above selection criteria. All studies were studies and from peer reviewed journals. I have used narrative summarized of included researches to synthesize the result. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS: Most of the studies have shown beneficial experiential learning using Virtual Reality in training and assessment. It’s effectiveness lie in providing a controllable and safe learning environment with opportunities of repetitive practice with feedback, without consequences to real or simulated patients. It’s less costly than mannequins and simulated patients. It’s interesting, motivating and highly preferred by most of the students. Moreover, studies have demonstrated better retention and transfer of skills to practice, than traditional methods. It caters to learning preferences of today’s digital native medical students. Some universities have effectively utilised this technology for distant learning during Covid Pandemic as well. Since most of the studies were cross-sectional and of short duration, no adverse affect on health of students were identified by most. Few studies have shown cyber-sickness symptoms like eye- strain, general discomfort, difficulty focusing and difficulty concentrating. Other studies have reported student’s isolation from real world and distracting from real task of learning. Following are the situations where VR has shown either superiority or comparable results than traditional methods. Assessment of laparoscopic surgical skills. Training of communication skills. Learning and assessment of anatomy specifically cardiac, temporal bone and neuroanatomy. Recognition of respiratory failure. Understanding ethical issues that affect clinical decision making. Emergency triage training. Training on history taking, physical examination and planning treatment. 6. CONCLUSION: VR can be effectively utilized in curriculum of undergraduate medical students alongside the traditional methods of teaching and learning. References: 1. Barteit S, Lanfermann L, Bärnighausen T, Neuhann F, Beiersmann C. Augmented, mixed, and virtual reality-based head-mounted devices for medical education: systematic review. JMIR serious games. 2021 Jul 8;9(3):e29080. 2. Methley AM, Campbell S, Chew-Graham C, McNally R, Cheraghi-Sohi S. PICO, PICOS and SPIDER: a comparison study of specificity and sensitivity in three search tools for qualitative systematic reviews. BMC health services research. 2014 Dec;14(1):1-0.