Bond’s virtual reality toolkit just what the future doctor ordered
GOLD Coast medical students are the first in Australia to delve into the human body using virtual reality.
The breakthrough in medical studies is the result of a two-year push by Bond University academics.
Associate professor Allan Stirling and assistant professors Christian Moro and Athanasios Raikos are behind the program, which was introduced this year.
Dr Moro said time in the laboratory working with cadavers was crucial for health sciences students but costly and rare.
So the trio learnt to code computer programs two years ago in an attempt to solve the problem.
“The best way to learn in science is to use the human body,” Dr Moro said.
“One of the problems we had was that outside of the labs, it’s very hard to learn.
“There are only a few hours to allocate in a medical or science program where students can actually have a hands-on experience.
“There were different apps out but they weren’t the same as holding a body.
“So we moved into the area of virtual and augmented reality.”
Dr Moro said the trio were aided by tech experts to establish the program that was piloted at Bond late last year.
He said virtual reality was an invaluable teaching tool that had been successfully used at the university since January.
Now the team was seeking to share the technology with other organisations and had taken the program to Gold Coast University Hospital to train anaesthetists, to local high schools to show students, and as far afield as Greece to aid students in postgraduate medical studies.
“It’s something unusual that’s really working well,” Dr Moro said.
“It’s less of the gimmicky VR … it’s actually a good way to learn.
“A couple of weeks ago we had to teach (about) the spine. It took us a couple of days. We quickly whipped up an entire VR application of the spine and the students were able to use it.
“Now that we’ve got the technology, we can use it for any part of the body and we’re expanding that as we go on. We’re trying to share it as much as we can.”