It’s not everyday that you see a medical student studying using a headset, gripping matching controllers and using technology that is advancing the field.
At the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, students are taking anatomy training to another level. In the Innovation Space, located at the Temple University’s Ginsburg Health Sciences Library, students, faculty and staff are using virtual reality technology to not only train the students, but as a stress reliever as well.
Students can select from many models and choose if they want to study systems on a projector, such as the heart, the bladder, vessels and arteries. The program allows you to take the systems apart and manipulate it to provide a realistic, remarkable hands-on experience. If you make a mistake while assembling the skeletal bones, simply put your thumb on the controller where the pinky belongs and you can start over.
PC: Temple’s Ginsberg Library
The technology also includes programs like Fruit Ninja, painting, and Beat Saber, a virtual reality rhythm game, and guided mediation to help students relax while creating an immersive experience that they can explore. Soothing imagery such as being in Space or at the Grand Canyon can create relaxing scenes and help reduce anxiety.
“In a way, your recreating your environment all around you. So, it’s a whole new area that you can explore. So, if I want to, I can put you on Mars, I can put you in outer space”, said Benjamin Sussman, a second year medical graduate student.
The virtual reality, or VR also gives medical students empathy training. The VR stimulates your senses such as your eyes or ears so students can better treat or understand patients who have vision or hearing disabilities.
“It’s been really neat and rewarding that the students in particular really get a lot of use out of it. And the people seem to enjoy it and find it helpful”, said Patrick Lyons, the Innovation Librarian at Ginsberg Health Sciences Library. The VR is not only available to medical students but also the public.
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