Virtual Environments in Healthcare: Immersion, Disruption, and Flow

Old forms of education are slowly crumbling under the weight of rapidly advancing computer and communication technologies along with the demands of learners who have grown up digital. These advances necessitate new thinking about the ways we educate and assess our healthcare workforce. Choosing anesthesiology (or any other healthcare profession) constitutes a commitment to life-long learning. Our careers span decades, and therefore, we need to constantly update our knowledge and skills. Yet, the traditional model of medical education has not changed in more than 100 years. The majority of our preclinical, and continuing education comes in the form of passive teacher-centric lectures. To paraphrase an example used by Sir Ken Robinson in his book, The Element, if we had a time machine and were able to bring a student forward in time from the 18th century, our educational system would be one of the few parts of society they would recognize.

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