Applying Virtual Reality in Medical Communication Education: Current Findings and Potential Teaching and Learning Benefits of Immersive Virtual Patients

The purpose of this paper is to summarize a theoretical perspective toward the development of a virtual reality innovation in education. Next, we will describe a virtual character project that is impacting the training of medical students in two institutions. In doing so, we will present a summary of three studies completed over the last two years, highlighting specific results from the research. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the impact of these findings on the development and implementation of virtual reality systems for teaching and learning. It is our hope that through providing this study of a virtual reality scenario - experienced by over one hundred end-users – from an educational concepts perspective will help others aiming to apply virtual reality to education.