How VR Prepares Doctors

The doctors conceived the scenarios. A team of programmers at AiSolve took the medical environment and created an AI-powered virtual world in which students can make decisions and progress or re-evaluate their decisions based upon responses from the virtual patient, virtual medical staff, and other program parameters.

Pediatric emergencies are rare, but by their nature, they are intense. The time pressure is extreme, measured in seconds or minutes. Young surgeons can’t practice these scenarios in real life as often as would be necessary to gain expertise. They usually have to work with mannequins, and the cost can run $430,000 a year for a single hospital to train surgeons on standard scenarios, according to Todd Chang, doctor at CHLA. The cost of the VR system is less than that amount, Shauna Heller, executive director of the project and former developer relations liaison for non-game projects at Oculus, said.

“This sort of cutting-edge medical training is where VR shines,” said AiSolve CEO Devi Kolli, in a statement “Working with the project team and CHLA doctors, we harnessed our AI-powered VR simulation tech to closely replicate real-life scenarios in a way simply not possible before. Plus, the AI features let students customize their learning, which strengthens their skills in the long run.”

The VR simulation not only reproduces the scenarios, it captures them in a controlled training experience, where performance can be measured and adjustments made.

The simulation reproduces the emergency situation. Paramedics rattle off symptoms. Nurses and technicians turn to the participating doctor to make a decision. Distraught parents pray for their child’s survival. It’s like a real Hollywood drama, but visceral and interactive. It prepares the surgeon for a real-life emergency without putting real humans’ lives on the line.

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