As Josefa Ramírez lay on the operating table at the Perpetuo Socorro hospital in Gran Canaria, she saw above her a night sky scene, as if looking up into the stratosphere while lying on the ground. The sounds around her were not the bustle of surgeons and nurses, but Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Debussy’s Clair de lune and other classical lullabies. Occasionally, the sky lit up with shooting stars and confetti blasts of fireworks.

These were not the hallucinatory by-products of a general anesthetic. Instead, Ramírez was wearing a virtual reality headset, built by start-up company Oculus VR. The night sky she saw was a computer graphics simulation shown on high resolution screens positioned centimetres from her eyes, giving the impression of being immersed in a night time world. The music came from the headset’s comfortable earphones.

Previously, Ramíre had been so stressed about her impending knee arthroscopy operation that she requested a general anaesthetic. However, according to her surgeon, Dr. Gerardo Garcés, she agreed to a less risky local anesthetic when she was told that the virtual reality night sky sim would ease her anxiety, lowering both her heart rate and blood pressure.



The rise of virtual reality



First explored back in the 1960s, virtual reality became a popular concept in the early nineties when the first consumer headsets appeared on the market. At that time however, the screens were extremely low resolution, and the motion tracking sensors were prone to lag, leading to terrible motion sickness. Unsurprisingly, they failed as mass market products.



Nevertheless, the technology continued to be explored in certain industrial niches, including the military and medicine. Many surgeons routinely practice operations using VR simulations.



According to the hospital, however, Ramírez’s operation was the first time that a headset of this type has been won by a patient during a live operation. “This trial brings a great clinical advantage to isolate the patient in an operating room and thus protect them from a stressful environment,” said Jorge Petit, the hospital’s CEO.

A video feed of the operation, captured by a Google Glass headset worn by the surgeon, was streamed live during the procedure. The feed was relayed to a YouTube channel and webpage, where it was watched live by approximately 150 other medical professionals and medical students from the University of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.

Droiders, a Spanish company that specialises in clinical software, created both the Google Glass software and the Oculus Rift simulation. “Google Glass allows people to watch surgeries being performed in another part of the world in real time,” said director, Paul Gailey Alburquerque. “This improves the learning process and allows doctors to more effectively share information. Moreover, surgeons might be able to use the technology for a second opinion or to clear up any doubts during the procedure.”

The hospital is keen to make use of virtual and augmented reality technologies outside of the operating room too. Earlier this month it began a testing phase of software that allows doctors wearing a Google Glass headset to scan a QR code on a patient’s wristband thereby quickly calling up their clinical history on the wearable device.

Virtual reality therapy has also been used in the treatment of serious burns. Created at the University of Washington, SnowWorld is an icy virtual environment that helps burn victims cope with their pain. In the past, the use of VR technology in medicine has been expensive, but as consumer technologies like the Oculus Rift become more advanced and easily available, their application is likely to be more common – making routine medical procedures a lot less frightening for patients.



“At first I was overwhelmed,” said Ramírez of the experience. “But gradually I relaxed and I forgot where I was.”