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Virtual reality (VR) might seem like just fun and games, but it’s also being applied in some surprising areas of education and training. In a room that’s set up as a hospital suite at Deakin University in Burwood, eager midwifery students are learning what it’s like to help a labouring woman through contractions thanks to VR technology.
Associate Professor Helen Forbes is the Associate Head of Deakin University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery. She’s worked with Deakin’s School of Engineering and School of IT to develop ‘Trinity’ a virtual pregnant woman.
Assoc. Prof. Forbes points out that when your classroom is a hospital, where there are so many variables, every midwife in training can struggle with practical lessons. ‘It’s hard for students to get a consistent, similar experience. It depends on the day of the week that they go to the hospital and the people they come in contact with,’ she says.
But Trinity enables students to develop their clinical decision-making in a controlled environment, in a scenario that’s not life or death. Students can learn what the factors are in the decisions they make under pressure and how to interact with medical staff and patients in a high-pressure environment, before they step into a ward for the first time. ‘We know that nurses at the bedside get interrupted – they’re constantly distracted by the patients or fellow staff members. With this technology we can find ways to help them deal with that,’ she adds.
VR is becoming increasingly valuable in the police force, too. In the 2014–2015 South Australian State Budget, police received funds for sophisticated virtual crime fighting equipment. The commitment includes $150,000 for a VR driving simulator to train police for emergencies and $380,000 for a firearms training simulator, which allows the force to test real responses to manufactured, high-risk situations in a safe environment.
Deakin University’s VR expert, Dr Ben Horan. VR will be at the heart of education and training in a number of sectors very soon. Dr Horan says that the appeal is being able to ‘create situations and scenarios that exist in real life.’ From medicine to occupational health and safety, and education people will be learning in virtual worlds before applying knowledge on the job, and going in to their work with an edge, knowing they’ve been able to practice over and over in a pseudo workplace first.
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Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Deakin University
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