Virtual Reality for Medical Trainees (2026-2027)

Background

Despite advances in medical training, persistent gaps remain in teaching empathy, cultural humility and patient-centered care. Traditional patient encounter simulations provide valuable practice but often cannot fully convey what it feels like to be a patient experiencing fear, vulnerability, marginalization or communication barriers. Research shows that empathy scores decline during clinical training, and many existing tools lack the authenticity or scalability needed to reverse that trend.

Virtual reality (VR) offers a transformative solution by allowing trainees to experience healthcare from the patient's perspective. Immersive, first-person VR has been shown to improve empathy, reduce stigma and deepen understanding of therapeutic communication. Yet almost all VR tools in medical education focus on procedural training, leaving a major gap in patient-perspective, narrative-driven content.

This project responds to that gap by creating immersive VR experiences that allow medical trainees to “become the patient,” experiencing healthcare from the inside out.

Project Description

Building on an ongoing pilot VR experience developed in the Feagin Leadership Program, this project will expand patient-perspective VR training through four major phases:

Landscape analysis and literature review
The team will conduct a systematic review of Duke medical, nursing and physician assistant curricula, interviewing 20-25 educational leaders to identify gaps in empathy and communication training. A parallel literature review will examine VR’s effectiveness in medical education. Findings will help identify three to four priority VR scenarios and refine the target research population.

Narrative development
Team members will conduct IRB-approved narrative interviews with 20-25 patients, using narrative medicine frameworks to explore moments when empathy, communication or cultural humility were particularly important. Students will also shadow perioperative and inpatient clinical environments to observe care delivery. Scripts will be reviewed by a Patient Advisory Board (two to three members) to ensure authenticity, emotional resonance and representation of diverse experiences.

VR production
Working with the Duke Co-Lab VR Studio, the team will film 360-degree VR scenes in real Duke Health clinical settings. Co-Lab staff will provide equipment, technical support and post-production expertise. Scripts will be vetted by clinical advisors to ensure accuracy, and all filming will follow HIPAA-compliant protocols.

Validation and evaluation
The VR modules will be pilot-tested with 40-50 Duke medical trainees and practicing professionals. The team will perform pre- and post-evaluation using validated tools such as the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, complemented by qualitative interviews. Data analysis will include paired t-tests and thematic analysis.

By integrating clinical practice, narrative medicine, immersive media and medical education research, the project aims to create an open-source library of VR experiences that reshape how empathy and cultural humility are taught in health professions.

Anticipated Outputs

• Three to four open-source, patient-perspective VR experiences
• Implementation toolkit and technical manual for use by other institutions
• Landscape analysis report on empathy training gaps
• Systematic literature review on VR-based empathy training
• Two to three peer-reviewed manuscripts
• Four to six student conference presentations
• Evaluation dataset on VR’s impact on empathy and communication
• White paper for Duke Graduate Medical Education leadership with curriculum integration recommendations

Student Opportunities

Ideally, this team will include 2-3 graduate or professional and 8-10 undergraduates from diverse fields, including pre-med and health sciences, humanities and arts (e.g., English, creative writing, theater, documentary studies), computer science, engineering, VR design or media production.

Students will gain experience in:

• Narrative interviewing and patient-centered qualitative research
• Clinical shadowing in perioperative and inpatient settings
• Scriptwriting using narrative medicine principles
• 360-degree filming and VR production workflows
• Mixed-methods evaluation and data analysis
• Designing assessment tools and facilitator guides
• Manuscript development and conference presentation
• Ethical inquiry and health equity frameworks
• Cross-disciplinary collaboration and project management

Medical students, serving as project managers, will mentor undergraduate teammates and help lead research design, VR production and manuscript drafting.

In Fall 2026, the team will meet on Mondays from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Timing

Summer 2026 – Summer 2027

Summer 2026 (optional):

• Project manager onboarding

Fall 2026:

• VR equipment training
• Landscape analysis, literature review and interviews with Graduate Medical
• Education leaders
• Clinical shadowing
• IRB submission and patient interviewing

Spring 2027:

• Script development
• VR filming and post-production
• Development of facilitator guides and training materials
• Pilot testing with trainees
• Analysis of empathy outcomes
• Drafting of manuscripts and conference abstracts

Summer 2027 (optional):

• Continued work on manuscripts and presentations
• Launch of open-source VR repository

Crediting

Academic credit available for fall and spring semesters