Match the exercise to the learning need
The examples below cover tasks that can be difficult to rehearse consistently. Choose one with your clinical and training leads.
| Learning need | Possible exercise | What to check afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment familiarisation | Find controls and identify the items needed for a defined task. | Can the learner recognise them on the real device? |
| Procedure preparation | Rehearse an educator-approved sequence and explain key decisions. | Can they apply it in a supervised practical session? |
| Communication | Respond to a fictional patient or colleague and practise a handover. | What information did they share, miss or need to clarify? |
| Team coordination | Work through a scenario with defined roles and handoffs. | Did each person understand their responsibility and when to ask for help? |
A conversation lesson may work well on a screen. A headset becomes more useful when the learner needs to judge position, find equipment around a room or understand a three-dimensional relationship. Connected multi-user sessions are a separate design choice, with additional coordination and testing.
Give clinical educators control of the lesson
The educator should define the intended learner, approved content and acceptable responses. Include the situations where a trainee should pause or escalate. A developer needs that detail to build meaningful feedback.
For a custom project, clinical review and software testing have different jobs. Your clinical experts check that the lesson is appropriate and accurate. Simvra implements and tests the commissioned application's interactions, feedback and recorded results. The project scope should identify who approves the clinical content and who maintains it when practice changes.
Use fictional patient details for training examples. A scenario usually needs the facts that support the learning decision, without copying an identifiable patient record.
What has been tested in medical education?
In a 2025 pilot trial by Knobovitch and colleagues, 30 medical students received online preparation for chest-tube insertion. One group also practised in VR. Blinded assessors then evaluated performance on a mannequin.
The VR group performed better on that practical assessment, while the groups did not differ significantly in knowledge-test results. This was a small study of one procedure, with a VR provider employee involved in coaching. It did not test patient outcomes or independent clinical practice.
Before building the virtual exercise, decide how an educator will assess the skill in the next supervised session.
Plan the session around the people using it
Allow learners to try the controls before the assessed task. Include a clear way to pause, restart or ask the instructor for help. If a learner cannot comfortably use a headset, consider a screen-based version or an equivalent instructor-led exercise.
Plan time for headset cleaning and handover between users according to your organisation's procedures. The instructor also needs a way to see what happened and discuss the learner's choices. A score alone rarely explains why someone struggled.
Where the skill depends on touch, resistance or handling a real instrument, include the appropriate practical training. Controller movements and visible anatomy do not reproduce every physical cue.
Choose a first lesson your educators can assess
A bounded equipment-orientation exercise or one procedure-preparation lesson is easier to review than an entire virtual hospital. Select an exercise that your educators already understand well and that learners can repeat without a long setup.
Record the support learners needed and the mistakes discussed afterwards. Compare the next practical assessment with your usual teaching approach. Use those observations to decide whether to expand the programme.