The characterisation of a virtual reality system to improve the quality and to reduce the gap between information technology and medical education

Abstract

Contemporary medical training is hindered by an excessive amount of information provided to students through mainly traditional teaching methods yet the younger generations are accustomed to digital data and information on-demand. As such they have developed a fully customised manner of learning, which in turn requires a new, innovative and equally customised teaching method. This inherited customisation and accelerated manner of learning stems from contemporary lifestyle trends. As such, a reduced learning curve requires innovative and efficient teaching methods, which comply with existing curriculums, yet facilitate the contemporary learning mantra. In particular medical education requires a plethora of information related to the understanding of spatial relations and the three-dimensionality of the human body. Previous studies successfully employed Virtual Reality (VR) and high fidelity patient simulation in order to improve and enhance the medical education and clinical training. The benefits of this technological adoption in the teaching field offered safer experimentation environments, reduced time and cost. Furthermore the Virtual Reality facilities and systems can be extensively customised with relatively low cost and be re-used for various applications. The purpose of this paper is to identify the differences between current education methods and the proposed technology. This research will exploit current teaching trends and attempt to provide recommendations based on a University of Jordan case study. Overall the paper describes the design process of the survey questionnaire that was used for this evaluation and provides valuable insights to both academics and practitioners regarding the potential benefits and drawbacks of adopting such a system. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.