St. Louis, Missouri – Virtual reality isn’t just for video games.

Some St. Louis nursing students are using it to get high-tech training without the need for real patients.

The Goldfarb School of Nursing has integrated virtual reality into its curriculum to give students the opportunity to hone their skills in a different way.

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As the demand for nurses continues to rise (McKinsey & Company predicts a shortage of 200,000 to 450,000 nurses next year), this technology helps the future. healthcare workers prepare more effectively and efficiently.

Katie Jett, program director at Goldfarb, said virtual reality not only helps students learn clinical skills but also makes learning more engaging.

Virtual reality is used to train nursing students. “When you think about how people connect, how teens and young adults connect, a lot of it is through virtual experiences and gaming and technology.” (Olivianna Calmes/Fox News)

“It’s the new way people connect and communicate, and it can be daunting for people. someone olderbecause that’s not how we connected,” Jett told Fox News.

“But when you think about how people connect, how teens and young adults connect, a lot of it is through virtual experiences and games and technology.”

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In addition to medical tasks, VR simulation help students practice their communication and bedside manner.

Zykita Deal, a nursing student at Goldfarb, explained how she practices giving advice to a virtual patient.

VR simulations help students practice their bedside communication and behavior.

“I was just talking to him about eat better, how to have a better routine with his medications…and I was giving him a recommendation on how to not be (so) alone, since he still has his son and they can still create meals that his wife prepared,” Deal said.

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“He could thus keep the memory of his wife alive,” she added.

Students equip themselves with VR glasses and controllers to perform various tasks, while instructors select responses from virtual patients, creating realistic scenarios that challenge students.

A Goldfarb School of Nursing nursing student interacts with a virtual reality simulation while wearing VR glasses, practicing her clinical skills in a virtual environment. (Olivianna Calmes/Fox News)

Lesley Schwartz, another nursing student, said the technology helps her prepare for real-world situations.

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“There will be times when vital signs are easily close to you,” she said.

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“There will be times when you have to fetch a vital cart to get into the room. And that kind of helps you prepare. When you’re immersed in virtual reality, you don’t get a brief glimpse of the the place where everything is.

Nursing students at the Goldfarb School of Nursing use VR controllers to simulate clinical tasks as part of their hands-on training in a virtual environment. (Olivianna Calmes/Fox News)

Research from Wolters Kluwer indicates that 65% of nursing education programs use virtual reality to some extent.

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Goldfarb combines VR training with full-featured patient simulators, providing engaging learning experience.

A nursing student practices her clinical skills in a simulated hospital room using virtual reality technology at the Goldfarb School of Nursing. (Olivianna Calmes/Fox News)

“It makes learning fun and that way you’re not always sitting behind a desk and hearing someone talking,” Deal said.

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Jett plans to expand the program by incorporating more advanced nursing scenarios to further enhance student training.