Department of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology, Faculty of Medicine, Saarland University, Building 9, Kirrberger Strasse 100, 66421, Homburg, Germany.
BMC Med Educ. 2024 Jul 23;24(1):788. doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-05777-5.
BACKGROUND: In medical education, new technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) are increasingly integrated to enhance digital learning. Originally used to train surgical procedures, now use cases also cover emergency scenarios and non-technical skills like clinical decision-making. This scoping review aims to provide an overview of VR in medical education, including requirements, advantages, disadvantages, as well as evaluation methods and respective study results to establish a foundation for future VR integration into medical curricula. METHODS: This review follows the updated JBI methodology for scoping reviews and adheres to the respective PRISMA extension. We included reviews in English or German language from 2012 to March 2022 that examine the use of VR in education for medical and nursing students, registered nurses, and qualified physicians. Data extraction focused on medical specialties, subjects, curricula, technical/didactic requirements, evaluation methods and study outcomes as well as advantages and disadvantages of VR. RESULTS: A total of 763 records were identified. After eligibility assessment, 69 studies were included. Nearly half of them were published between 2021 and 2022, predominantly from high-income countries. Most reviews focused on surgical training in laparoscopic and minimally invasive procedures (43.5%) and included studies with qualified physicians as participants (43.5%). Technical, didactic and organisational requirements were highlighted and evaluations covering performance time and quality, skills acquisition and validity, often showed positive outcomes. Accessibility, repeatability, cost-effectiveness, and improved skill development were reported as advantages, while financial challenges, technical limitations, lack of scientific evidence, and potential user discomfort were cited as disadvantages. DISCUSSION: Despite a high potential of VR in medical education, there are mandatory requirements for its integration into medical curricula addressing challenges related to finances, technical limitations, and didactic aspects. The reported lack of standardised and validated guidelines for evaluating VR training must be overcome to enable high-quality evidence for VR usage in medical education. Interdisciplinary teams of software developers, AI experts, designers, medical didactics experts and end users are required to design useful VR courses. Technical issues and compromised realism can be mitigated by further technological advancements.
背景:在医学教育中,虚拟现实(VR)等新技术越来越多地被整合到数字学习中。最初用于训练手术程序,现在的应用案例也涵盖了紧急情况和非技术技能,如临床决策。本综述旨在概述 VR 在医学教育中的应用,包括要求、优点、缺点,以及评估方法和各自的研究结果,为未来将 VR 整合到医学课程中奠定基础。
方法:本综述遵循 JBI 方法更新的范围综述,并遵循各自的 PRISMA 扩展。我们纳入了 2012 年至 2022 年 3 月期间发表的英文或德文的综述,这些综述检查了 VR 在医学和护理学生、注册护士和合格医生教育中的使用。数据提取侧重于医学专业、科目、课程、技术/教学要求、评估方法和研究结果,以及 VR 的优缺点。
结果:共确定了 763 条记录。经过资格评估,纳入了 69 项研究。其中近一半发表于 2021 年至 2022 年,主要来自高收入国家。大多数综述侧重于腹腔镜和微创手术的外科培训(43.5%),并包括合格医生作为参与者的研究(43.5%)。强调了技术、教学和组织要求,并对涉及绩效时间和质量、技能获取和有效性的评估进行了评估,通常显示出积极的结果。报道的优势包括可及性、可重复性、成本效益和技能发展的改善,而提到的缺点包括财务挑战、技术限制、缺乏科学证据和潜在的用户不适。
讨论:尽管 VR 在医学教育中有很高的潜力,但要将其整合到医学课程中,必须满足与财务、技术限制和教学方面相关的强制性要求。必须克服报告的缺乏用于评估 VR 培训的标准化和验证指南的问题,以便为医学教育中使用 VR 提供高质量的证据。需要软件开发商、人工智能专家、设计师、医学教学专家和最终用户的跨学科团队来设计有用的 VR 课程。通过进一步的技术进步,可以减轻技术问题和现实感受损的问题。
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