Friday, Oct. 20
14:30 – 16:30 (2 hrs)
Meeting Room: Pavilion Ballroom D (3rd floor – North Tower)
Petal Abdool*, MD; Petal Abdool, MD; Michael Mak, MD; Fabienne Hargreaves, MA; Tucker Gordon, N/A; Rachel Antinucci, MHE; Stephanie Sliekers, MEd; Chantalle Clarkin, PhD; Allison Crawford, MD; Ahmed Hassan, MD; Sanjeev Sockalingam, MD

CanMEDS Roles:

1. Medical Expert
2. Health Advocate
3. Communicator

At the end of this session, participants will be able to: 1) Conduct a virtual reality (VR) suicide risk assessment and identify risk factors, protective factors, and level of risk using a VR simulation followed by a facilitator-led debrief; 2) Manage an unconscious patient in a VR simulation, recognize opioid overdose, administer the required treatment, and support patient postresuscitation; and 3) Review the evidence for using VR simulation in medical education.

Deaths from opioid overdose and suicidal ideation are on the rise in Ontario and Canada and have become a significant public health concern (COVID-19 Science Table and Government of Canada). Many disciplines in medicine have begun to use innovative simulation technologies such as virtual reality (VR) to teach trainees, which allows for exposure to rare or high-risk situations in a safe learning environment (Jiang H et al., 2022; Zagury-Orly et al., 2023). There is a dearth of literature supporting the use of VR in psychiatric education.
Participants in this interactive, experiential course will learn how VR is used to improve clinical skills in high-risk scenarios within psychiatry. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in up to four scenarios with VR avatars in a virtual environment: two suicide risk assessment scenarios (a 45-year-old man and 19-year-old woman) and two opioid overdose scenarios (a hospital setting and community setting). Each participant will don a VR headset (supplied by the team during the course) and select a scenario. All VR scenarios respond dynamically and in real time to participant decisions, build on complexity, and provide immediate feedback to each participant. Participants will actively engage in a facilitated debrief after VR simulations, which will include appraisal of the emerging literature related to the use of VR in psychiatric education, lessons learned, limitations, and best practices. Facilitators will also share the results of their current VR research and draw on the experience and expertise of all participants to stimulate a lively discussion.

References:

1. Jiang H, Vimalesvaran S, Wang JK, et al. Virtual reality in medical students’ education: scoping review. JMIR Med Educ 2022;8(1):e34860.
2. Kyaw BM, Saxena N, Posadzki P, et al. Virtual reality for health professions education: systematic review and meta-analysis by the digital health education collaboration. J Med Internet Res 2019;21(1):e12959.