Indigenous 
Submitted by Laralea Stalkie, Associate Dean, School of Nursing and Tricia Anderson, Associate Dean, School of Baccalaureate Nursing
SLC’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) program is bringing virtual reality into the classrooms in Kingston, Brockville, and Cornwall this year, funded by a Ministry of Health grant for the accelerated BScN program. The new technology is changing how students learn anatomy and practice clinical skills.
The first of the two new VR platforms is called HoloAnatomy, which projects life-scale, three-dimensional holograms into real-world environments, allowing students to walk around a beating heart or examine a spinal column from every angle. Multiple students wearing MetaQuest 3 devices can view the same holographic model simultaneously, enabling collaborative learning and interactive demonstrations.
"We can make anatomy more lifelike," explains Jamie Morris-Pocock, Nursing professor in Brockville. “Students can zoom in on organs and examine anatomical relationships in ways traditional textbooks simply cannot provide.”
The second platform, UbiSim allows students to enter realistic hospital and community settings where they practice clinical decision-making and technical skills without risk to real patients. Scenarios range from respiratory distress to postpartum hemorrhage, with sessions that can be recorded for debriefing and reflection.
The VR platforms are currently being used in year one of the BScN program and will expand into the upper years. Eventually, the goal is to include Practical Nursing to ensure more students have access to these state-of-the-art learning platforms.