‘Like the way we work in real life’: Medical schools use AI, mixed reality to train future doctors and nurses
The use of technology can help future doctors and nurses gain more confidence in carrying out procedures, said medical schools.
A virtual reality tool allows students at Nanyang Technological University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine to better visualise anatomy. Dr Vivek Perumal (right), senior lecturer in anatomy at the medical school, says the new generation of students learn better with the help of technology.
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SINGAPORE: Medical schools are ramping up the use of technology to improve the learning process for their students.
This includes using virtual and augmented reality tools to simulate common medical procedures, and tapping artificial intelligence to prescribe medication more accurately.
These novel tools also help to cut down on the workload of educators, the institutions told CNA.
BETTER UNDERSTANDING MEDICAL PROCEDURES
At the National University of Singapore's Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, a mixed reality tool, which blends virtual reality and augmented reality, is being used to train medical and nursing students on how to insert urinary catheters and tubes for intravenous drips.
It does so by giving these students a three-dimensional view of anatomical structures.
This emergent technology can help them to learn how procedures, including the removal of tumours, are carried out.
The medical school said that textbooks may not illustrate such scenarios quite as well.
“Because the visualisation is way better compared to the old way of teaching, (students) have a better understanding of the actual anatomy in 3D form,” said Dr Alfred Kow, assistant dean of education at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.
“Previously all this information was available in 2D - or even when they are available in 3D, (the) virtual reality form is reconstructed from graphics. Whereas nowadays, all these things are actually real patients' material that is anonymised and converted into holograms,” he added.
“This is actually as real as it can be.”
The school noted that it is working with a software company to create avatars of patients in different clinical scenarios. The device helps students in key areas like decision-making and interpretation of medical conditions.
MAKING LEARNING MORE REALISTIC
At the Nanyang Technological University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, the incoming intake of first-year students will be able to better understand how organs such as the heart work.
A virtual reality tool, for instance, allows them to better visualise anatomy and reduces the workload of educators.
Dr Vivek Perumal, senior lecturer in anatomy at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, said this new generation of students learn better with the help of technology.
“To explain the same development of the heart, I should be drawing at least 20 images on the screen to explain to students what is happening,” he added.
“And I would be drawing one from the anterior view and from the posterior view. Sometimes, students might not even know how to relate those two images.
“Whereas when I tell them to go to the VR and have a look, they can easily manipulate what I'm trying to convey from my mind to their mind.”
USING AI TO PRESCRIBE MEDICINE
The school will also use artificial intelligence to help the next batch of final-year students to learn how to accurately prescribe medication.
The simulator closely resembles the prescription system at hospitals.
The Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine said it can prescribe medication with an accuracy of up to 99 per cent.
Professor Tham Kum Ying, assistant dean of Year 5 students at the medical school, said the previous prescription training system required “a strictly exact-word matching that the students have keyed in” before they will be given the correct answer. Students have to ensure they pick the right drugs for a patient, with the right dosage and frequency.
“Sometimes spelling mistakes happen, which we can correct. But in terms of the dosage, we do have some flexibility,” she said, adding that marking a student's work is now more reliable.
“In real life, prescribing for a patient, there could be two ways that are both equally right to prescribe. But in the previous model of marking, that is not acceptable.”
AI allows the boundaries of the acceptable and correct prescription to be redrawn by the students, said Prof Tham.
“It really gives very good feedback because it's almost immediate. And the students begin to realise that both ways of prescribing are correct, and they don't get hung up that there's only one correct way of doing things,” she added.
“So it is much more like the way we work in real life.”
