For those who ordered early, the long-awaited Oculus Rift starts shipping today, the HTC Vive is expected to officially ship April 5, and Sony’s Playstation VR is slated to arrive in October. Virtual reality headsets aimed at the consumer/gamer market are finally becoming a reality.

But health care organizations have been taking a healthy dose of virtual reality for quite some time. Most of the health care VR projects are in the experimental stage, but virtual and augmented reality are a natural fit for medical training simulations. And it’s not hard to imagine practical uses of VR for students, doctors and even patients that could transform the medical field.

LinkedIn Nick van Terheyden