Physicians, trainees and even laypeople can now stand right beside an expert radiologist as he performs one of the most difficult medical procedures of its kind — in virtual reality.
Ziv Haskal, MD, of the University of Virginia Health System, has created a dramatic teaching tool using the power of virtual reality. Whether watched on a high-end VR system or an inexpensive cardboard viewer, Haskal’s virtual procedure puts the viewer right next to him as he creates a new blood vessel in a patient’s liver through a small nick in the patient’s neck.
It’s a complicated procedure — Haskal calls it an «interventional radiology heptathlon» — and his use of VR is set to transform how it is taught. «The current means of teaching is a physical person has to arrive … and go over with the doc beforehand. Or they have to look at a lousy 2D animation on a screen,» Haskal said. «Once you put [VR] glasses on people, it’s like you walk them through a completely different door.»
IR in VR
From inside the VR goggles, viewers can look around in 360 degrees as the procedure, known as a transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt, unfolds around them. Haskal guides them step-by-step through the entire procedure, and strategic use of picture-in-picture lets the viewer see both what Haskal is doing and what he is seeing.
Haskal designed the VR experience as a teaching tool for physicians and trainees, but he can foresee many other game-changing applications. VR might be used to show a patient what to expect during a procedure, to teach a nursing student what must be kept sterile in an operating room or to provide a refresher for physicians who have not performed the procedure recently.
Great!