Virtual reality isn’t just for video games.

Some St. Louis nursing students are using it to get high-tech training without the need for real patients.

The Goldfarb School of Nursing has integrated virtual reality into its curriculum to give students the opportunity to hone their skills in a different way.

Burned and making it through: U.S. hospitals struggle with growing nursing shortage

As the demand for nurses continues to rise (McKinsey & Company predicts a shortage of 200,000 to 450,000 nurses next year), this technology helps the future. healthcare workers prepare more effectively and efficiently.

Katie Jett, program director at Goldfarb, said virtual reality not only helps students learn clinical skills but also makes learning more engaging.

Read on the Fox News app

“It’s the new way people connect and communicate, and it can be daunting for people. someone olderbecause that’s not how we connected,” Jett told Fox News.

“But when you think about how people connect, how teens and young adults connect, a lot of it is through virtual experiences and games and technology.”

Accelerated training in nursing schools to combat the shortage

In addition to medical tasks, VR simulation help students practice their communication and bedside manner.

Zykita Deal, a nursing student at Goldfarb, explained how she practices giving advice to a virtual patient.

“I was just talking to him about eat better, how to have a better routine with his medications…and I was giving him a recommendation on how to not be (so) alone, since he still has his son and they can still create meals that his wife prepared,” Deal said.

Parents trust AI more for medical advice than doctors, researchers find

“He could thus keep the memory of his wife alive,” she added.

Students equip themselves with VR glasses and controllers to perform various tasks, while instructors select responses from virtual patients, creating realistic scenarios that challenge students.

Lesley Schwartz, another nursing student, said the technology helps her prepare for real-world situations.

Nurses speak out: “What I wish I had known before entering the profession”

“There will be times when vital signs are easily close to you,” she said.

For more health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health

“There will be times when you have to fetch a vital cart to get into the room. And that kind of helps you prepare. When you’re immersed in virtual reality, you don’t get a brief glimpse of the the place where everything is.

Research from Wolters Kluwer indicates that 65% of nursing education programs use virtual reality to some extent.

Click here to subscribe to our health newsletter

Goldfarb combines VR training with full-featured patient simulators, providing engaging learning experience.

“It makes learning fun and that way you’re not always sitting behind a desk and hearing someone talking,” Deal said.

Jett plans to expand the program by incorporating more advanced nursing scenarios to further enhance student training.

Original article source: Nursing students use virtual reality to improve skills: ‘brings fun to learning’