A Review of the Use of Virtual Reality for Teaching Radiology in Conjunction With Anatomy.

Anastasios Katsourakis,George Noussios,Marios Salmas,Irene Asouhidou,Chrysanthos Chrysanthou,Georgios Paraskevas,Aliki Fiska,Dimitrios Chytas,Theano Demesticha

doi:10.7759/cureus.20174

Abstract

Incorporation of radiology into anatomy education is a frequently used teaching strategy. Our purpose was to investigate to what extent virtual reality can play a significant role when radiology is taught in conjunction with anatomy. PubMed, SCOPUS, Education Resources Information Center, and Cochrane databases were searched for articles with the aim to evaluate the outcomes of incorporation of radiology in anatomy education, using virtual reality. From each included paper, the following data were extracted: authors, number of participants, type of study (comparative or not), level of outcome according to Kirkpatrick hierarchy, and outcomes of the use of virtual reality when radiology was incorporated in anatomy education.Seven papers were included. From them, three were comparative and evaluated students’ academic performance after the educational intervention, while four were non-comparative and evaluated only students’ opinions about the intervention. In all studies, the use of virtual reality for the incorporation of radiology into anatomy teaching was positively perceived. Also, the three studies which evaluated academic performance showed that virtual reality was effective in terms of enhancing anatomy knowledge.The implementation of virtual reality for the incorporation of radiology into anatomy education has been accompanied by positive outcomes. These outcomes may encourage educators to teach radiology in conjunction with anatomy using virtual reality.

Highlights

BackgroundIncorporation of radiology into anatomy education is a common practice in medical curricula [1] and can be justified by the unsatisfactory anatomical knowledge of many senior medical students who enter radiology rotations [2]
The following data were extracted: authors, number of participants, type of study, level of outcome according to Kirkpatrick hierarchy, and outcomes of the use of virtual reality when radiology was incorporated in anatomy education
All studies included in the current review showed that the incorporation of radiology into anatomy education using Virtual reality (VR) has led to positive results, concerning students’ opinions [10,11,12,13,14,15,16] and their knowledge [10,11,12]

Summary

Introduction

BackgroundIncorporation of radiology into anatomy education is a common practice in medical curricula [1] and can be justified by the unsatisfactory anatomical knowledge of many senior medical students who enter radiology rotations [2]. Teaching radiology in conjunction with anatomy has been accompanied by encouraging learning outcomes [3]. Learning radiologic anatomy seems relevant to most medical students’ future clinical practice. Despite the suggestion for integration of radiology into anatomy teaching, there is currently a lack of reviews of evidence about the role of specific methods in this integration [3]. There is, to the best of our knowledge, a lack of review of the evidence about the value of VR in teaching radiology in conjunction with anatomy. The purpose of the current review was to investigate this value and explore to what extent VR can be considered as an effective means of incorporation of radiology into anatomy education

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion