Anatomic VisualizeR: Teaching and Learning Anatomy with Virtual Reality

The University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine's Learning Resources Center (LRC) has been actively engaged in the development and implementation of a virtual reality (VR) based application for education and training. The resultant product, VisualizeR, is a virtual environment (VE) designed to support the teaching and learning of any subject that requires an understanding of three-dimensional (3-D) structures and complex spatial relationships. VisualizeR's multimodal application interface approach, named virtual reality-multimedia synthesis (VR-MMS), enables interaction with 3-D models and concurrent access to multimedia resources, including text, images, animations, video, and sound. Moreover, the flexible and extensible VisualizeR architecture accommodates the needs of a wide variety of different teaching approaches and provides the capability for dynamic and unstructured student exploration.

The scientific domain selected for UCSD's first VisualizeR lessons was human anatomy, because it represented one context in which a VR-MMS-based strategy was both achievable and apropos. While still considered the gold standard against which alternatives are judged, current educational methods?-? a combination of lectures and laboratory dissections?-? fall short of instilling the requisite 3-D conceptualization, retention, and application of anatomic knowledge to clinical-problem solving. These pedagogical challenges are further complicated by shortened anatomy curricula owing to competition from other courses; the desirability of less dependence on human cadavers because of scarcity, costs, aesthetics, and environmental concerns; and reductions in hours and resources (including faculty) available for wet laboratory coursework. At the same time, many curricula are including greater amounts of anatomic information, including conceptually challenging 3-D relationships, a need that could be well met by VR-based anatomy resources.