Walk A Mile In Their Shoes: The Usage of Virtual Reality in the Medical Field
Tags: virtualreality, vr
Published: 2022-08-02 12:58:42

The use of virtual reality, or [VR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality), has slowly become commonplace in society. VR headsets have hit the shelves of technology retail stores at a shockingly affordable price. A technology once regarded as science fiction has become accessible to the public for as cheap as $299, less than a typical smartphone. Although most people are used to the fact that VR development is associated with gaming, virtual reality may have its place in a more practical setting to be used as medical training. Through VR technology, medical challenges involved with cadavers, mental health, and a lack of empathy may be addressed. 

## Virtual Reality vs. Cadavers
 
One challenge linked with medical school is the use of cadavers. As written by Bahar Gholipour for the Scientific American, current use of cadavers for medical student use comes with its own set of difficulties. The initial dissection of the cadaver takes time and due to the anatomy of certain organs, those organs become inaccessible in order to avoid destroying them in the process. That provides even further issues such as an improper exploration of anatomy. Furthermore, if improper care is taken and organs are damaged, the appearance of the organs would become inaccurate. This provides two problems: either the cadaver cannot be used again due to its inaccuracy which can rack up expenses to get more cadavers, or future students who use the damaged cadaver would have an incorrect idea of the image of organs inside the body. However, it seems that cadavers may not be accurate even if they are not damaged. Gholipour quotes James Young from the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, who states “the embalmed cadaver has a very flat, compressed organ presentation. The colors are not the vibrant colors of a living human.” Young proves that not only are cadavers expensive and hard to work with, but they also do not provide an accurate representation of what medical students will have to work with in the field. It provides the fact that cadavers are difficult with not an effective enough payoff. 

However, Gholipour continues on to say how virtual reality could be medical school’s saving grace. Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine’s first-year students in 2020 had a cadaverless curriculum due to the use of virtual reality. With the VR headsets, students were able to see human anatomy in motion and see how the body systems work with one another. In this augmented reality, students were able to examine any organ from any angle, a feat that is nearly impossible with a cadaver due to its delicate manner. The use of virtual reality can replace the timely and costly use of cadavers, while also providing more accurate imaging for learning doctors. This could help lead to more informed doctors who are more confident in their anatomical and physiological knowledge. 

## VR’s Place in Mental Health Care
 
Another issue in the medical field is the lack of effective mental health care. According to Samartzis and Talias, mental illness accounts for thirteen percent of the total burden of illnesses from all diseases worldwide. They continue further to state that, “The unmet need for quality in mental health services that responds to patients’ needs and respect citizens’ right to mental health can be achieved over time through…targeted improvement of quality in the provided mental health services,”. As they stated, a large part of the issue with the burden of mental illness stems from the lack of quality services that those suffering from mental illnesses can access. 

The only way to help those suffering, as well as decrease the total worldwide burden of mental illness, would be to start implementing mental health services of favorable quality. A forward-thinking way of doing so would be the implementation of VR in mental health services. Freeman et al. did research into this way of thinking. As mental health is inseparable from the patient’s surroundings, they believed in testing the usage of putting mental health patients in exposure based therapy using VR. The authors described how the types of therapies that are most effective for those with mental illnesses are the ones that enable its sufferers to learn and change behaviors in real-life situations. Through the use of VR in healthcare, patients can encounter real-life scenes that may be triggering for them in a safe and controlled way to help them practice proper behaviors in those situations. In doing their research, they found that VR could eradicate the need for a therapist for certain disorders, and decrease the need for therapist input for others. The authors make it very clear they view VR therapy as the future for effective mental health treatment. 

## VR as an Empathy Machine

One of the most important issues that plague healthcare is a lack of empathy in nursing. As Dean et al. describes, empathy is a core part of healthcare, but it is more integral in nursing. As nurses have to help patients throughout their entire experience and are more involved with the entire healing process rather than just a single operation, it is important for nurses to be empathetic towards their patients to provide better care. 

Both Dean et al. and Bertrand et al. bring up the proverb “try to walk a mile in another person’s shoes.” By doing this, one would move and copy the other person’s movements, and subsequently, feel distressed facing the other person’s needs. By doing this, one would understand the other person better. This would then push one to have the desire to help the other person. This would be a psychological series from mimicry in copying the other person’s actions, to affective empathy in which one can experience a feeling in relation to another person. These actions finally lead to compassion, in which a person has motivation to care for the wellbeing of another person. 

VR would make it possible to walk in another person’s shoes by being able to put a person in another’s situation. In fact, VR is already being used in simulations of psychopathology in which people are put into an immersive simulation of a psychotic episode. This usage of VR would help nurses be more empathetic towards the struggles of those suffering from psychosis in order to treat them better. This usage can be expanded into other illnesses and their psychological effect on patients which can help nurses form better care plans that also account for the patient’s psychological needs. 

## Conclusion
 
Medical challenges have arisen all throughout medical history. However, in our day and age, certain medical challenges are easier to solve with the use of virtual reality. Through the use of virtual reality, the issues of cadavers, mental health treatment, as well as something as crucial as empathy in nursing may be addressed and become better. As research confirms that VR is an effective method to advance healthcare, the next step is to make sure that the technology becomes accessible to all to better how we practice healthcare.