TRUST-VR
- Title: TRUST-VR
- Subtitle: AI-Empowered Virtual Reality for Professional Soft Skills Training - A Feasibility Study in Pediatric Care
- Duration: 2025 - 2026
- Fundings:
About
Virtual Reality (VR) holds transformative potential for medical education. However, its current applications have focused on technical skill training, whereas its potential for cultivating communication competencies remains underexplored. This limits the broader pedagogical impact of immersive technologies in healthcare training. In this project, we aim to address this gap through the development of an AI-empowered VR training environment which enables realistic and adaptive simulations of emotionally complex clinical interactions. While our overall research vision is to advance the usage of ICT in professional training by extending immersive technologies towards human-centered, emotionally intelligent skills development, we will limit the scope of TRUST-VR to pediatric care. Given that interactions with frightened children are emotionally charged and require careful trust-building strategies, we consider this as an ideal case to explore both the technical feasibility and the didactic effectiveness of our overall vision.
The project builds on an interdisciplinary research collaboration with the Bern University Hospital (Inselspital), Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine (Dr. med. et MME Isabelle Steiner and Dr. med. Fabrizio Romano)