Virtual Reality for use in education will be one of the many applications this new media will revolutionize.

I recently got to check out a video created for the Moveo Foundation in France which aims to create Augmented and Virtual Reality training videos and experiences for the advancement of medical research.

The following is not a Virtual Reality experience as such but more an immersive video which allows you to see what the surgeon sees. It was filmed using 2 GoPro cameras set on a head mount looking down. The recording was later stitched together and run through some stabilization software to give the user a more stable image. To view this video on the Rift you need to install a third party media player called Whirlgig which will render the images inside your head mounted display.

Please note what follows is extremely graphic and unedited. If you feel a bit squamish at the sight of blood I suggest you look away now.

Watching this video in the Rift it’s easy to see why Virtual Reality will play an important role in training our best and brightest minds in the future. From talking to a junior doctors`they rarely get a clear unhindered view when observing a surgery as if you’re in the surgery room you are given a job to do and looking over a surgeons shoulder is far from ideal. The view from this video is the view from the eyes of the surgeon performing the operation and because of the stereoscopic view you can judge depth easily which is a major step up from watching a standard training video.

After a few minutes you forget that the videos field of view is quite small as you are totally focused on the operation. Remi Rousseaud the creator of the video has told us that they are experimenting with different lenses and setups and hope that in the near future they can achieve a much wider field of view and they are also testing out 4k capture equipment. This test video was captured with the original DK1 in mind so the resolution is 1440p but this is still quite effective and really gets the point across that VR can be a very useful tool for trainee doctors.

The real benefit of this type of VR training is that when it is done right, it can really enhance a student doctor’s knowledge of surgery techniques as they can watch the same procedure from multiple surgeons where in real life they might only ever see a procedure take place a couple of times form a handful of different surgeons who would all likely be practicing at the same hospital and would have their own set way of operating. In fact I have already seen comments about this Hip Replacement video from doctors in America saying that they approach Hip Replacements slightly different from the French surgeons seen here.

This is a very early first step into Virtual Reality for the medical industry but it’s certainly showing the promise of revolutionized learning. I can certainly see that someday in the future VR will become an integral part of every students education and one vital to promoting new standards of excellence.

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