Doctors employ virtual reality to train for trauma care

Dr. Arishi Abdulaziz put on a headset, moved his hands slightly and immersed himself into a virtual world.

But this was no video game. Abdulaziz was “standing” in a trauma bay at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, amid a medical team treating a car crash victim.

He watched the team cut off the patient’s black T-shirt and shorts. He heard a doctor ask the patient questions. Meanwhile, a medical technician scanned the man’s abdomen and chest with an ultrasound probe.

Abdulaziz turned to the right and left to assess staff members and watch monitors. He turned around to review an ultrasound screen.

Eventually, he removed the gear and got his bearings. He was back in a small office at Grant.

“It’s a great experience,” Abdulaziz said. “It is as if you are in trauma, really. Like 100 percent, you are in trauma.”

The virtual-reality experience is new for residents training in trauma care at the downtown hospital. Earlier this month, Abdulaziz, a resident from the University of Toledo Medical Center, joined Dr. Jesse Nichols, a resident from the Adena Regional Medical Center in Chillicothe, in testing out the experience.

Nichols donned headgear and suddenly was among members of a trauma team helping out a woman injured in a fall.

“I felt like I needed to reach out and help the patient,” he said, upon removing the headgear. “You’re right there.”

The virtual-reality scenarios — there are three — were filmed in July by a team from Ohio University that hung or mounted three softball-sized camera and microphone units in the emergency department to capture 360-degree experiences, said Eric Williams, co-creator of the new Immersive Media Initiative at the Athens, Ohio, school. Patients consented to be in the videos.