Can artists use virtual reality to train doctors to be more empathetic?
That’s one of the questions being answered by Embodied Empathy, a new interdisciplinary project lab at VCUarts. The lab is led by VCUarts assistant professors Jill Ware and John Henry Blatter.
In Embodied Empathy projects, participants wear an Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset, watch videos and follow instructions that simulate the experience of being in someone else’s body. So far, VR has been used to study micromovements in golf swings, help violin students learn fingering technique and even analyze ballet form among dance students. According to Ware, “Early on, it became really apparent there were a lot of ways to connect this project to other disciplines.”
Two new research projects are forging connections between the arts and health. In one project, the Embodied Empathy team is working with Dr. Scott A. Vota from the Department of Neurology at VCU Health to create VR experiences that will help family, caregivers and advocates understand what it’s like to suffer from early, middle and late stages of ALS.
The team is also working with Dr. John E. Nestler, VCUarts Physician-Scientist in Residence, on a VR pilot program supported by the VCU Presidential Research Quest Fund to promote empathy and reduce bias towards gerontology patients among first-year medical students. The controlled study will validate theories on empathy and bias, by conducting measurements before and after students complete a VR experience, based on the Jefferson Scale of Empathy and the UCLA Geriatrics Attitudes Scale. If successful, the researchers think VR training could become part of conventional medical school curriculum. Connecting the arts and medicine through an emerging technology has been an exciting undertaking for the team.
“It’s about striking the balance of the creative versus the cognitive and the analytical versus the creative,” Ware says. “There are so many learning spaces within VR. It’s a whole new medium to work with.”
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