The ability to practice nursing skills without real-life consequences is a fundamental advantage of using Virtual Reality (VR) in nursing education. VR nursing simulation provides a safe space where students can make mistakes, learn, improve, and repeat without the risks associated with real patient care. The right technology can take VR simulation even further with remote, asynchronous, and siloed virtual simulations; a feature that allows students to complete their patient encounters, beginning-to-end, without the rug being pulled out from under them.
Ensuring student safety in simulation is crucial. An article from SimZine highlights a concerning trend: inexperienced educators or professionals-turned-teachers with little to no education training sometimes unknowingly inflict psychological distress on students under the guise of ‘real life simulations.’ This misguided approach can lead to what is referred to as ‘Sim PTSD.’ There is a pressing need for mandatory training for simulation educators, ongoing professional development, and adherence to established simulation standards. These steps are crucial to enhance the quality of student safety in simulation and protect the mental well-being of nursing students. Without such standards, the risk of heightened anxiety, stress, and dropout rates among nursing students escalates. As the growing patient population reaches 65+ against a global staffing shortage, we need more nurses completing their programs with confidence and high competency, not the opposite.
Virtual reality nursing simulation in the VRpatients platform offers a solution by allowing educators to create effective VR nursing simulations before a student puts on the goggles, and for students to safely complete their simulations undisturbed. This ensures that even if students make mistakes, the learning process continues in a comfortable setting while maintaining every opportunity for the educator to debrief after the simulation experience with a provided analysis and grading rubric. The asynchronous simulation also prevents educators from abruptly ‘pulling the rug out’ from under students (for example: calling a sudden ‘code blue’ mid-simulation because the manikin stopped working), thus fostering a safe learning environment for the student to complete the sim as originally intended by the educator.
Today, with staffing shortages and high patient-loads, educators need every tool in their toolbelt to teach more students, and students need more opportunities for frequent and realistic patient contacts, so the hospitals and agencies can hire staff who are ‘Nurse Ready.’ In 2024, we are not bound by antiquated and expensive simulation equipment that will only ever be 1:1, we can ensure students are well-prepared and confident before they encounter real-life medical situations at scale (hundreds of students performing hundreds of simulations simultaneously), thus supporting both the needs of our healthcare system and the needs of our learners.
Protect your students and enhance their learning outcomes with VRpatients. By offering a controlled, safe simulation environment, you prepare them for the challenges of real-world patient care. Learn more about how our platform can support your educational goals at scale.