Virtual Reality: a Teaching-learning Strategy for Cognitive Mastery in Airway Trauma Management

Participants will experience a novel interactive and immersive VR full size trauma bay with an adult patient and healthcare professionals. Immersed in the environment, learners undertake the decision-making steps in managing the medical care for a patient with an airway injury. Learners are first given the case scenario from which they form their own learning goals/plans. They then navigate through the scenario that will provide feedback depending on their actions in the form of either the patient's hemodynamic changes or prompts from healthcare avatars in the scenario. These feedback processes are built-in and designed to promote reflection and reorganization of the learner's decision-making strategies. As learning progresses, fewer prompts will be given. At the end of the scenario, evaluation algorithms pre-programmed into the VR-based simulation will be displayed.

Participants will experience a mannequin-based scenario practice which is the current gold standard in medical education. The trauma airway management scenario will match the VR environment and sequence of events.