Multi-session VR Medical Training: The HOPS Simulator

Virtual reality medical simulators offer the potential to provide a training environment for a novice doctor to practise skills without risk to patients. However, these simulators must be shown to provide learning before they are used in a medical training environment. This paper describes the first stage of an experiment to assess the effectiveness of the Glasgow Horse Ovary Palpation Simulator for training novice veterinary students. The performance on the simulator of a group of participants has been measured over multiple training sessions. The results show that over 4 training sessions, participants improved in their accuracy in diagnosis on the simulator while reducing the time required to make the diagnosis.