Virtual and Augmented Reality Put a Twist on Medical Education

The virtual patients give clinicians in training a chance to practice difficult conversations about sensitive topics like substance abuse, mental illness, or sexual assault. While these and other applications of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) in medical education are fairly new there is emerging data supporting their value as an adjunct to more traditional training modalities. Here, Kuehn discusses how virtual patients could help clinicians improve their interactions with real ones.