Extended reality in educating the next generation of health professionals

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has severely impacted health professions education and assessment has mostly shifted online. Major challenges remain especially about teaching-learning and assessment of clinical skills. Interacting with an individual online does not provide the range of information provided by an in-person meeting. There have been dramatic advances in computers and the internet in the last 60 years. Extended reality (XR) is all real- and virtual-combined environments and human-computer interactions generated by computers and wearable devices. The future physical world is likely to face multiple challenges. It is likely that human interactions and learning will increasingly occur in XR spaces. Three-dimensional holographic avatars and interacting and manipulating objects in XR spaces will become easier. Most medical education can occur in these spaces. Universities will invest substantially in these spaces. The safety of the physical world, the cost and usability will determine the extent of use of these learning spaces. © Malaysian Association of Education in Medicine and Health Sciences and Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia. 2021