The Good and Bad News of Health Care Employment

cording to Moro and McBride. These symptoms resolve quickly after taking off the device, but they will likely limit the duration of study and how much information can be conveyed in one setting, Moro said. “Currently, a lecture can run for 2 hours, and students can quite happily sit there each week and absorb the information,” Moro said. “Within virtual reality, we had optimal times of 10 minutes, maximum.” Both Moro and McBride agreed that these new tools would supplement rather than replace modalities like lectures, online content, 3D-printed models, imaging, and cadavers. “It is clear that cadavers are the optimal way to learn; however, in a modern medical and biomedical curricula, there are considerable supervisory, ethical, and financial constraints on students spending enough time with these specimens,” Moro said. These new tools just add to the teaching toolbox, added McBride, offering another way to increase student access and engagement. Moro said that the use of this kind of technology in clinical education has reached a tipping point, driven by rapid advances in easy-to-use consumer technologies designed by major firms like Facebook, Samsung, and Microsoft. “For years educational technology has gone through hypes and failures,” Moro said. “All of a sudden the world’s biggest tech companies are investing in this space. These devices are ready for consumer use, and as such, they are unlike the many teaching tech tools that have come before them.”