Purpose
Anatomical knowledge is an essential foundation of undergraduate medical education and a key component of multiple clinical specialties such as radiology, surgery, and pathology. Due to compression of available curricular time and advances in technology, the traditional pedagogical approaches for teaching anatomy need to evolve to meet the study habits and demands of modern learners. The dual purposes of this study were to acquire experience about opportunities to integrate virtual reality (VR) technology into an existing gross anatomy course and observe student interest and attempt to gauge impact of virtual anatomy in anatomy learning.
Method
Because virtual and augmented reality is still emerging instructional tools, introducing this technology presents challenges. A grant for purchase of the device was obtained from the State Medical Society. A dedicated space in the gross anatomy teaching was used to set up a Virtual dissection studio. The newly released Apple Vision Pro was used in this study as a VR device with compatible software by 3D Organon. First-year medical students were given the opportunity to test this new device to facilitate their anatomy learning. Participation was voluntary and varied in duration and frequency.
Result
In addition to the initial financial investment, other complications included the timely delivery of equipment and software, recruitment of student users, framing meaningful learning objectives, and assessment of virtual experiences. Thus, faculty development is essential for implementation. Our initial observations verify that medical students have diverse learning preferences that can shift with exposure to new experiences.
Conclusion
Rethinking the anatomy teaching modalities to cope with the reduced time allocation for anatomy in the new curriculum is essential and suggests that multiple learning approaches can be complementary. Therefore, different options should be available to the students to give them a solid foundation in anatomy and train them to be knowledgeable physicians.