VIRTUAL REALITY CLINICAL SKILLS
Master’s Research Project
The Institute of Medical Science Virtual Reality Clinical Skills Initiative is an immersive virtual reality (VR) interactive experience for graduate research students to learn about the clinical environment.
Watch the prototype demo video!
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Clinical work in the healthcare field is becoming increasingly common in graduate research-based programs. This is especially prevalent in interdisciplinary academic settings such as the Institute of Medical Science (IMS) at the University of Toronto, where graduate supervisors often manage research laboratories alongside clinical work. Subsequently, many graduate students now extend into patient-facing clinical roles. Navigating the professional setting is extremely difficult, with students often thrown into fast-paced clinical environments with minimal training or understanding of their role.
To address these concerns, the University of Toronto IMS is developing a new clinical skills course that combines traditional teaching methods with an immersive virtual reality (VR) component. In recent years, health program curriculums have been shifting towards problem-based learning and immersive active learning techniques. New literature also supports the use of VR as a clinical education tool. This project specifically aims to enrich the IMS curriculum by developing an interactive VR-based learning tool that will be used in the graduate level clinical skills course.
TYPE
Virtual reality interactive experience
TOOLS
Figma, Unity, Insta360 Studio, Autodesk Maya, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro
CLIENT
Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto
AUDIENCE
IMS MSc and PhD graduate research students
SUPERVISORS
Jodie Jenkinson & Michael Corrin, University of Toronto
CONTENT ADVISOR
Nicole Harnett, University of Toronto
Date
August 2023
