BackgroundA wide range of reviews have demonstrated the effectiveness and tolerability of Virtual Reality (VR) in a range of clinical areas and subpopulations. However, no previous review has explored the current maturity, acceptability, tolerability, and effectiveness of VR with intensive care patients.

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This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has influenced undergraduate medical education in various ways already. In affected countries, educators and their teams were faced with a rapidly changing situation that made traditional ways of curriculum delivery impossible and required alternative approaches. Exams have also been affected and a cohort of students has graduated early and now joins the workforce. There is also concern for the next academic year should the pandemic last longer. In this paper we aim to describe wider implications of the pandemic beyond current curriculum delivery, exams and planning. We describe how our own clinical and educational environment has been utterly transformed within weeks and speculate how much these changes will persist after the pandemic. We also describe student concerns and introduce the thought that the pandemic may have positive long term effects as well. Finally, we speculate how COVID-19 may affect student recruitment, multi-professional learning and the current and future undergraduates' view of the profession. Our aim is to share our experience in the UK, reflect on the direction and magnitude of change seen in our own local and regional practice, and provide food for thought for educators and their teams who find themselves in a similar situation.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the practical applications of virtual reality (VR) in healthcare. One discussed application of this technology is to reduce anxiety during procedures for paediatric patients. Following skin loss in paediatric patients, careful management of the wound with appropriate dressings and frequent dressing changes is a key part of the treatment process. In children, continued dressing changes are often a source of anxiety, which complicates procedures causing distress to the child, their parents and staff members. VR systems have the potential to not only reduce anxiety but also pain in children requiring frequent dressing changes. Although our knowledge of this technology is improving, further research is needed to evaluate its full potential in this population and to establish guidelines to take advantage of the full potential of VR technology.

Background: The use of virtual reality (VR) in medical education allows learners to make mistakes safely without risk to patients and to refine a range of clinical skills by repetition. However, there is still wide variability both between, and within countries regarding the amount of training delivered using VR, particularly in relation to intensive care medicine Objectives: To identify the range of uses, phase of development and effectiveness of VR for intensive care unit (ICU) staff training. Methods: The review followed the scoping review framework set out by Levac et al. (2010). A multi-database search was undertaken. All study types were included if they explored the use of VR for intensive care staff (ICU) staff training. Full paper screening, data extraction and assessment of bias was carried out by a single reviewer with verification by a second reviewer. A narrative synthesis was chosen to summarize the data.Results: The search strategy identified 647 records. Following the removal of duplicates, screening of titles, abstracts and full texts, five studies were included. VR for ICU training has primarily focused on skill acquisition for surgical procedures. The majority of studies in this area were classified to be at an early stage of assessing acceptability, tolerability and efficacy. There was very low-quality evidence that VR for ICU training is effective.Conclusions: Studies have explored the use of VR for a small number of surgical procedures and emergency patient scenarios. VR for ICU training demonstrates some potential, however further development and high-quality research is required.Research relating to virtual reality for ICU staff training is currently of weak methodological quality and as such, no recommendations to clinical practise can be made. Wherever possible when using VR for ICU staff training it should be utilized as part of a high-quality study.