For the first time, British doctors were able to practice “operating” on a patient hologram using a virtual reality headset.
- A virtual reality headset was used for a real surgical operation for the first time in France in May 2021 at the Franciscaines private hospital in Nîmes.
- Numerous studies have proven the potential of virtual reality to treat mental disorders of patients, for example via so-called “exposures”.
There is no need to sterilize the instruments: there is no operating room or real patient. For the first time in history, medical students at Addenbrooke University Hospital in Cambridge, UK, had the opportunity to treat a…virtual patient.
In real time
Wearing an augmented reality helmet equipped with the Microsoft HoloScenario application, the apprentice doctors found themselves facing a patient in a hologram that they had to operate on using equally virtual medical instruments. A seasoned doctor was also present throughout the intervention to correct any errors in the course of the students, specifies the site of Cambridge University Hospitals.
The idea of the HoloScenario application is to recreate a realistic medical environment in which practitioners must make decisions in real time to treat the patient. Knowing that the software can adapt the response of the patient or add complications to the operation – like during a real intervention, in short.
A solution to train remotely?
The initiative is currently confined to emergency care and respiratory conditions such as asthma, pulmonary embolism and pneumonia, but other modules are planned in the fields of cardiology and neurology. The University of Cambridge intends to distribute this tool to other medical universities. With the objective, in particular, of developing distance training while providing practical courses in medicine, at a time when the Covid crisis has called them into question.
Aniket Bharadwaj, one of the first doctors in training to use the device, explains: “Throughout the course in medical school, we had scenarios where actors intervened as patients. With the pandemic, all of that changed to tablet-based interactions due to the risk the virus posed. Having a hologram patient that you can see, hear and interact with is really exciting and will really make a difference in student learning. »
