Virtual reality helps nursing students experience a patient’s perspective
At the click of the door, a weary mother shrugs off a white blanket at her daughter’s side. A medical team files in, curt and professional. White count not coming down. Some
epithelial sloughing. A significant pulmonary injury. Her CRP is elevated. Consider ECMO. Let’s ready her for transport. The mother tilts her head, trying to take in the words
but unable to find the sense in them. Rapid-fire questions about her daughter’s vaping habit leave her stunned and confused. As she begins to weep, the team files out of the
room. The mother turns to the last person remaining: the nurse sedating her daughter. “What does all that mean? Just tell me what’s going to happen to her, please!” “Mrs.
Kelly, I have to go check on a patient, but I’ll be back as soon as I can,” the nurse responds, then she, too, walks out the door. The scene is as heartbreaking to witness as
it is common. “Many of us have experience with loved ones interacting with the healthcare system and not receiving the kind of care we felt they needed in terms of empathy,”
reflects Clinical Assistant Professor Lori Sprague, also assistant director of the Innovative Simulation and Practice Center at Binghamton University’s Decker College of Nursing
and Health Sciences. “And we thought, ‘Maybe we can help people understand what it’s like to be that person going through the experience.’” A virtual reality (VR)
simulation helps undergraduate nursing students do just that, by allowing them to experience an emergency-care scenario from the perspective of an intubated patient. The scenario
is intended to instill empathy that, contrary to popular belief, is a skill that can be acquired and strengthened. An innovative solution Nursing students in the Baccalaureate
Accelerated Track program wear virtual reality goggles to help learn about empathy. Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen. Nursing students in the Baccalaureate Accelerated Track program
wear virtual reality goggles to help learn about empathy. Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen. × Decker has explored VR’s possibilities before, but earlier software was expensive and
involved a full headset tethered to a computer. Limited to a single user at a time, it proved unfeasible for a classroom setting or home use. Enter the smartphone, the YouTube app
and Google Cardboard. “You really need to be able to reach the masses, so we came up with this idea of creating a virtual reality simulation that is easy and accessible,” says
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Patrick Leiby, Decker’s director of technology and innovation. “You can get a $3 cardboard headset, put your phone in it and have 100 students all sitting in a room at the same
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