Chennai: While technology is extensively used by doctors and nurses to treat and monitor patients, medical education has followed a time-tested path hours of lectures and heaps of book learning, followed by clinical rounds. Now, medical schools say they can do without the time lag. They are bringing student training modules with virtual and augmented reality software and high-fidelity simulation models in which manikins are designed to breathe, blead, and even respond to medications.
On Friday, a software simulation company Medisim VR tied up with Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (SRIHER) to establish a VR skill training lab. The lab will play a pivotal role in upskilling medical students, nursing students and healthcare professionals, as well as professionals from other medical colleges across Chennai, said university vice-chancellor Dr Uma Sekar.
Simulated environments are already popular among students, said university dean (education) Dr Latha Ravichandran. “They are more than just CPR on manikins. We now use them to train students to navigate a breathing tube into its throat. It is a near normal environment and student will develop dexterity, control and confidence early before plugging in for the real in the emergency rooms,” she said. These manikins also tell students why and how they go wrong.
Taking this technology a step further, SRIHER has now set up kiosks in which students can wear special googles and in virtual reality see a magnified 3-D image of every organ in the body. “We can also load patient scan reports on machines to personalise training. This means they can see a tumour in a stomach or a polyp in the colon. They can virtually resect the tumours or place implants in the knee or devices such as pacemakers in the heart to see response and improve outcomes,” Dr Ravichandran said.
