[Derek Harmon] Here at UCSF, we're
introducing virtual reality
for the first year medical students
that corresponds with
their first learning block,
so when they leave the cadaveric lab,
they can immediately come over
to the virtual reality lab
and they can learn the same material
they just saw on the
cadaver in a virtual space.
In virtual reality, they
can go from the skin level
all the way down to the bones
and take every single
layer off as they go,
see the relationships,
how they're stacked up,
how they're aligned,
and then, when they get to the bones,
they can repeat it almost like a puzzle
and put all the pieces right back on there
all the way back out to the skin.
[Jordan Holler] Today, I spent three
hours in the anatomy lab
and then, I went straight from that
to working on the virtual
reality anatomy lab, essentially,
where I was able to sort
of pull the muscles apart
that I had been looking
at on the cadavers.
I think the cadaver experience is really
integral to our medical education
and, you know, Derek and the whole staff
does an amazing job of instructing us
and taking us through the cadavers
and being able to see those
muscles on those bodies,
but at the same time, you know,
it's a little bit difficult to get
an entire 3-dimensional
picture of what's going on.
With the VR, it's sort of
like a process, you know,
where you can build it and rebuild it
and I think that sort of helps understand
the anatomy a lot better in a
much more in-depth experience.
[Jordan Holler] One of the hardest things for students in anatomy,
at least, early on, is understanding
that spatial relationship
of everything in the body.
Virtual reality is exciting for me
as an Anatomy instructor
because it's going to be able
to enhance the students' understanding
of the arrangement of the body
because the better they know the body,
the better physicians they'll end up being
the rest of their career.
(light, upbeat music)
