Diagnostic radiography education amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: Current and future use of virtual reality (VR)

The COVID-19 pandemic required significant change within higher education institutions worldwide. In our institution, for instance, the COVID-19 pandemic caused several challenges, notably, students being unable to attend allocated placement sites. This created an opportunity in our radiography programme to utilize virtual reality (VR), in response to shortfalls in placement exposure for students. Whilst VR has been recognized within the radiography curricula prior to COVID-19, adjunct to other forms of learning and teaching tools [[1],[2], its uses during the pandemic have naturally expanded. Typically, radiography students are exposed to a range of learning methods, including lectures, tutorials, technical positioning sessions, coupled with compulsory attendance of clinical placement. Yet, our sudden need for social distancing, isolation, and for some, strict lockdown measures, required sudden need for change in our academic delivery [[3]]. Here, in Australia, like many other countries transnationally, lectures were transitioned online, and this coincided with some students unable to complete clinical placements because of restrictions placed by either clinical centres or local health districts [[4]]. This was unprecedented and as clinical placements were suspended, it required an alternate assessment strategy to satisfy the learning outcomes of subjects. VR, then, played a critical role within our institution in order to ensure students were not disadvantaged any more than necessary and able to progress in their undergraduate degree.