UNB using virtual reality to help train LPNs to become RNs without having to relocate

Some licensed practical nurses in New Brunswick are working toward their bachelor of nursing degrees without having to leave their home communities — using virtual reality for their coursework, and clinical lessons at the hospitals where they live.

It's a University of New Brunswick pilot project, currently in its first year and running in Moncton and Miramichi. It's part of the Learn Where You Live program, a pathway for licensed practical nurses to become registered nurses.

In the past, students had to move or travel to Fredericton to complete their nursing degrees.

"They actually stay in their home location and our courses are offered to them virtually using distributed learning models," said nursing professor Renée Gordon.

She said the students do their clinical learning at the hospital in their home communities.

"So it's really supporting those learners who want to stay in their home community or can't leave their home community," she said.

"It's keeping the resources in those communities and building capacity there."

The nursing faculty partnered with the university's spatial computing lab, SPECTRAL, to develop the virtual reality simulation.

Critical thinking skills for challenging situations

Students are given virtual reality goggles to wear for lab sessions. The goggles present them with a virtual reality setting where they get to practise skills such as inserting an IV, or using a stethoscope while also testing their critical thinking skills in crisis situations that can arise in work settings.

Gordon said simulation is a significant part of nursing education. On campuses, simulations are offered using mannequins and dummies. She said the virtual reality simulations are a way to give students a glimpse into the unpredictable nature of the profession.

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A nursing pathway program is using virtual reality to teach licensed practical nurses the skills to become registered nurses without having to travel.

"They'll certainly do the typical skills that you'll think of like inserting an IV, inserting a urinary catheter," Gordon said. "But they'll also do some really important critical thinking skills where they learn how to take a challenging situation and take charge and address it."

Miramichi-based Kaitlin Moran was a part of the first cohort of the pilot program. As the mother of three with a hectic home schedule, she said it's beneficial that the program allows her to stay in her area.

And she was surprised to learn virtual reality would be part of it.

"It's not about the skills, it's about the critical thinking," Moran said. 

"So I was really excited because we got to do, just as an example, there was an allergic reaction. So we had to figure out what to do in that scenario. There was a child, she was having anaphylaxis and so we went and we treated this patient."

Gordon said virtual reality benefits the students because a clinical practice environment may offer similar "acute situations" or they might not. However, Gordon said, if a similar crisis happens in a clinical practice environment with real patients, the students would take a step back, letting staff nurses take control.

"This is a standardized way for us to make sure that they're getting the experiences we want them to have, especially those acute situations … this way we put the learner in the hot seat in the situation and they get to act out how to address this situation," she said.

The virtual reality goggles put the student in the position of the "primary nurse."

"In [real life] simulations, we have small groups, so only one or two students can be the primary nurse and the rest have to watch. We call it active observation. But in this situation, every single student can be the one doing the skills,"

Does not substitute real life

Ollando Brown, an education technology specialist with the program, troubleshoots issues with the virtual reality headsets and trains contract instructors on the learning curves of virtual reality.

Brown said it's not meant to replace practical education but rather as a way to build muscle memory for these practical skills.

"This is in no way shape or form to replace practical. It is to work alongside practical," Brown said.

"It's not to say 'oh you've done VR simulations to do a catheter and all these different labs and you know how to do it,'" said Brown.

"That's not what it's there for…. You won't physically be in the lab, but you will have a virtual space to practise that. And now when you go back to the lab you will make less mistakes."

Similarly, Moran said virtual reality allows room for mistakes that real life doesn't.

"You can make mistakes in the VR, but you can't in person. So as much as it's OK to make mistakes in the virtual reality, it helps you so that you don't when you come in person," Moran said.

Moran also said the virtual reality component has other benefits — like giving students a way to practise the skills on their own time and learn at their own pace in a simulated environment.

"You're always stressed when you're in person, right? Like you're under someone's supervision all the time, Somebody is there monitoring you. Sometimes I think people forget how to act properly…. They kind of get shaky, they get nervous, they mess up," she said. 

"When you're doing it in virtual reality and you get to copy it a couple times, like go through and say 'I should have done this,' you get to relax more and then you actually fit more into your role … it's much more private versus when you're in class with all your classmates watching you when you mess up something because you're nervous."