Teaching Neuraxial Ultrasonography With a Virtual Reality Simulator of Spine

Teaching Neuraxial Ultrasonography With a Virtual Reality Simulator of Spine: a Randomized Controlled Trial

As one of the most extensively practiced regional block, neuraxial anesthesia is the basic skill for anesthesiologist to acquire. Recently, virtual reality (VR) has been proposed as a new simulation training method to enhance medical education. The aim of our study is to evaluate the practical skills of ultrasound scan and the satisfaction of students who undergo training using VR versus traditional didactic lecture.

This is a prospective, single-center, randomized control trial to evaluate the performance of spine ultrasound scan after different training methods. Participants were randomly divided into two groups receiving different training methods: VR spine simulator or traditional didactic teaching. After the training, participants were required to perform a preprocedural spine ultrasound scan on healthy volunteers using the stepwise technique taught in the didactic teaching session. The participants needed to acquire three key ultrasound views during the scan and recognize the anatomic structures in three ultrasound views.

Inclusion Criteria:

• anesthesia residents in our department

Exclusion Criteria:

• having previous experience of spine ultrasonography training
• having previous experience of spine ultrasound scan.